Composition & recording © Alexander Massey 6 Feb 2021 – All Rights Reserved Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) 2:5 “In a place where there is no humanity, strive to be human.” [Interpretive translation] If this song encourages people to look into the darkness, and gives a sense of the bleakness when there is an …
Composition and audio © Alexander Massey 15 March 2021 Genesis lists 70 descendants of Noah after the crisis of the Great Flood, and from this, Jewish tradition has it that there are 70 nations of the world, and that we all come from one family. This nigun has 70 notes. We, the Jewish people, are one …
Music and audio © Alexander Massey 1 May 2017 These words, based on 2 Samuel 10:11, are traditionally spoken as we finish reading a book of the Torah. They can be translated: “Be strong, be strong, and we shall be strong!” The first half is in the singular, and the second half is in the …
Music and audio © Alexander Massey 8 June 2020 – All Rights Reserved Two part round
Music and recording © Alexander Massey 18 July 2020 – All Rights Reserved A musical meditation on the morning blessing for moving mindfully through the world. “In blessing, I kneel to you,coming to the threshold of is-ness/presence,our source of all powers,that rules all that is and eternity;you firm up my steps,giving me your strength and …
Hameichin Mitzadei Gaver (‘… who makes our steps firm’) Read More »
Music, English lyrics and recording © Alexander Massey 2020 – All Rights Reserved BUY the sheet music (lead sheet) $3.95 “Peace, peace, when you are far,However close you are.”So speaks Havayah. “Who is Havayah?” you might ask. This is a word that, in more recent times, some people have chosen to say when they have in …
Music and recording © Alexander Massey 13 Sept 2020 – All Rights Reserved BUY the sheet music (lead sheet) $3.95 (Note: I have also written a two part round setting of the final verse of Ps 23, which you can find here.) 1 Yah is my shepherd; I lack nothing. [Chorus] 2 Yah makes me …
Music and recording © Alexander Massey 12 Sept 2020 – All Rights Reserved BUY the sheet music (lead sheet) $3.95 “Let the heavens rejoice and the earth exult; let the sea and all within it thunder.” Psalm 96:11 is such a joyous text, it needs music that will get people clapping, stamping and raising the …
Music and recording © Alexander Massey 26 March 2017 Composed for the ‘United for Peace – United Through Poetry’ event 10 May 2017, an initative of The Oxford Foundation delivered in partnership with the Edward Cadbury Centre for the Public Understanding of Religion at the University of Birmingham.
Music and audio © Alexander Massey 10 June 2019 BUY the sheet music – $4.95 (voice & piano/guitar) This was composed for a concert based on Book 4 of the psalms, for the Society for Old Testament Study Conference, Oxford University July 2019. These verses are an important part of Yom Kippur liturgy, with the themes of …