Testimonials

In a career spanning over 30 years, I have worked in many areas, and received a lot of feedback. To summarise, I have set out some of comments under the following headings:

Jewish events

  • “Alexander Massey is highly experienced at leading people in workshops. We feel that what he offers is something profound and unique.” Jenny Goodman, co-founder of the London Ruach Chavurah (Jewish Renewal), and Stuart Linke, author of Psychological Perspectives on Traditional Jewish Practices
  • “I gained much from Alexander’s session including a spiritual quality which was very meaningful.” Dr Laurence Jacobs, Cantor, Bet-El New London Synagogue and Borehamwood Synagogue
  • “Thank you for the wonderful time and care you gave to the session with our chaplaincy team. It was such an informative as well as inspiring gathering which was a joy for all of us to share.” Leading interfaith morning prayers, followed by a teaching seminar on ‘Pastoral care in the Jewish tradition’ for Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust, Chaplaincy Team
  • “Wonderful session!  I was so impressed with how you handled [one of the session participants] with great sensitivity and wisdom. I know other people liked your work very much as well.” Participant at Limmud session
  • “I have been a member of this synagogue for 30 years, but never go to services. But if services were like this, I’d go to them!” ‘A’, audience member at an interactive talk with live musical illustrations
  • “I hadn’t realized that the psalms could come alive like this when they’re sung. I’m going straight back to my church after this to suggest that we start singing the psalms!” 44th Jewish-Christian Bible Week, Germany
  • “I’ve been quite unhappy recently, and been going through some difficult times. Your session this morning [on Elohai n’shamah] was really helpful, and I’m feeling much more connected now.” Participant at a Limmud session
  • “I started doing yoga a few weeks ago, and have been wondering how Judaism might fit with it. Your session [using meditation, chant and gentle movement] showed me how to make the connection. Thank you!” Participant at Harrow Limmud session
  • “What you are doing is quite remarkable. You really understand the prayers and the texts and have set them to music beautifully; this is music that shul-goers can listen to, learn from, and sing themselves. This is the proper future of Jewish liturgical music.” “Incredibly impressive … your comments, the music, everything … just superb. I’d love to make our shul a home for your creativity, incorporate some of your music into our liturgical process – it’s too good not to be incorporated into congregational life.” Rabbi Stuart Altshuler, Belsize Square Synagogue, London
  • “I have recently resumed morning davening [prayer] after a hiatus of many years, and I start it by chanting along  your rendition of Modeh Ani.” Someone I met at a Jewish mindfulness meditation retreat we both attended
  • “Just a say a great big thank you for such a wonderful soul enhancing afternoon. it was one of the best afternoons I’ve spent for a long time.” ‘B’, audience member at an interactive talk with live musical illustrations
  • “You gave us a real treat today. Most of us have no knowledge of composition and we felt you gave us an insight into your beautiful musical world.  All our group were full of praise for the session. We want more and hope we can persuade you to do another music appreciation for us next year. Many thanks for giving us of your time. Comments were unanimous that it was absolutely wonderful. I was so pleased to meet you and thoroughly enjoyed listening to your songs and compositions.” ‘C’, audience member at an interactive talk with live musical illustrations
  • “Thank you for giving us such an enjoyable performance yesterday. Your subject matter was interesting and informative and the music was as always original and delightful. I find it so refreshingly different from my childhood memories in my provincial  Jewish community when I couldn’t wait for the services to end. We could have gone on discussing the issues you introduced longer but had to let you go. I love hearing you play and sing with your extraordinary musical talent. You take me back to my Jewish early learning but with an interest and enjoyment I have never felt before.” ‘D’, audience member at an interactive talk with live musical illustrations
  • “I had a lovely afternoon.  Your expertise is just soooo impressive.  I felt I was truly in the hands of an expert and, when you revealed that all the instruments and vocals were yours on one track [from Alexander’s CD ‘Nachamu, Nachamu‘], well, I was full of admiration and respect. I have a problem with deity-obsessed words so I was grateful when you actually referred to some audiences not liking that.  But I knew what I was in for and just enjoyed your input.” Self-professed atheist at an interactive talk with live musical illustrations
  • “Although I feel that I understand  little about music  technicalities in general and Jewish music in particular, I  still enjoy your talks as I like listening to your beautiful melodic voice and enthusiastic presentation of his subject.” ‘E’, audience member at a talk with live musical illustrations
  • “I’ve often wondered about the psalms, but after your session, I’m definitely going to go home and read some.” ‘F’, audience member at an interactive talk with live musical illustrations

Performing

  • “Alexander Massey was excellent”  The Independent
  • “consistently thoughtful and light of touch” Oxford Times
  • “Eloquent … Alexander Massey projected a honeyed tenor line” Gloucestershire Echo
  • “For me it is the performance aspect that I love and would be very happy to hear you sing the telephone book.” Audience member at an interactive talk with live musical illustrations
  • “Alexander’s voice is wonderful to listen to and drown in; rather like the smoothest, most delicious chocolate you’ve ever tasted.” Audience member at an interactive talk with live musical illustrations

Personal development workshops and seminars

  • “I have only high praise for Alexander Massey. He led a workshop at our Annual Conference and sensitively worked with our conference theme, engaging with a wide age group and within a very short time we were all fully involved in the process he took us through. We were left deeply refreshed and wanting more. His attention to who we were and our needs, was most impressive.” Bracha Newman, Chair, The Guild of Pastoral Psychology
  • “Another workshop with this man would be brilliant!” (Guildford College of Further Education) [I went back there 8 years running]
  • “I have had much previous experience of workshops and consider your workshop possibly the very best I have ever attended. It was quite magical, and I was deeply touched.”  (singing teacher and jazz singer)
  • “Thank you for the notes and the workshop, I thought it was absolutely fantastic!!! It shifted worlds for me..so..a tap for you on the shoulder.”
  • “Superb day. Balanced, thoughtfully paced. Should be compulsory.”
  • “I really liked the way you ran the workshop. You had no ego. You shared your gifts and knowledge. You made it fun. There was much wisdom. There was great opportunity for growth. You are a great teacher.”
  • “Extremely professional way you encouraged us all to join in without feeling threatened or embarrassed.”
  • “Excellent workshop and great fun!”
  • “Alexander cared about us and for us. Really enjoyed the day and the gentle pace allowed me to reflect on experience.”
  • “An excellent workshop – I’m very impressed!”
  • “You set the event up beautifully.  It was such a pleasure dealing with you in advance of the event and your whole friendly and natural approach gave me as organiser a very high degree of comfort that you would handle it professionally and that it would be a success.  I really appreciate the way in which nothing seemed to be too much trouble and how much you focused on what we needed rather than just on what you would or could provide. You led us through a powerful yet safe set of exercises and experiences that really helped us to open up to each other, to enjoy each others’ company, to learn new things about each other and to break down barriers between each other. The atmosphere during your exercises was tangibly electric.  I was observing peoples’ reactions (as is my role!) and I was struck by the sheer enjoyment, the shared pleasure, the improved non-verbal communication between participants, the rapidly increasing confidence exhibited by people and the disappointment when it finished.  I found your personal contributions hugely helpful and encouraging – I really liked the way that you led and participated at the same time and how your leadership powerfully enabled people to participate when it could so easily have been intimidating because of your obvious skills.”
Jeremy Keeley, Managing Director, Sadler Heath
  • “I just wanted to say thank you for a wonderful day today – you delivered far beyond my expectations! The attentiveness and focus we held through the day was just one result of the skill with which you managed the group. Your processes gently led us all into a very deep state, allowing profound realisations and shifts to surface for everyone present. All this without anyone feeling compelled to ‘share’ or expose their personal vulnerabilities! I truly admire your vision for expanding authenticity in the world and I believe that there isn’t a single company (or interpersonal relationship!) that would not benefit from what you have to offer. I left with a renewed commitment to honour my own authentic voice … and the authentic voice of others. I honour yours – it’s a rare gift.”
Jennifer Moalem, InSpirall, Practitioner – Resonance Repatterning
  • “Last Thursday was a very special day for many reasons. Firstly, the workshop contains some very powerful processes and I encourage you to run this workshop again when you’re next over from the UK. I feel that your tools for decision making have many useful applications. It’s about developing trust for my decision making that lies beyond my rational thinking…..from the unconscious so to speak. The Circle … I still can’t quite get over how a small bit of blue ribbon had such a powerful effect on my mind, thinking, behaviour and feelings…. and in association with the group’s skill at questioning and the ‘truth bubble’ the whole process provided me with some wonderful insights about myself … thank you!”
Jeffrey Wilson, Managing Director, Quantum Evolution (Health Consultancy), Australia
  • “Thank you for your inspiration I felt from your workshops…your powerful energy comes through strongly as well as your wisdom and genuine connection with people! What wonderful work you are doing…” 
Nerise Howes – complementary health practitioner

One-to-one coaching

  • “I do so appreciate you for working with me so well, I always felt that you were totally there for me and powerful enough to hold my energy without rescuing me. You really helped me to accept myself – even those bits which were not very appealing to me at the time. I really appreciate your power, your generosity, your kindness, your trust, your awareness, your noticing, your courage, your openness, your honesty, your professionalism, your attention to detail, your patience, and your love.”
 Heather, counsellor
  • “When I first came to these sessions I was deeply unhappy being who I was, but I believed that this was unalterable. Over time I came to recognize that I am not confined to repeating the patterns of behaviour and feeling of my past life, even if changing them is a slow and stumbling process. I am not confined to the view of me that other people may continue to hold. Because I know that I do not have to go on being governed by it, I have dared to see more of how I habitually think and feel and act. If I can leave these sessions and still remember something of this larger vision, I will have made good use of what I have been given here. The fact that I can write it now is a tribute to you and the quality of your work. What has made this growth possible is the presence, trust and love that I have met with in these sessions – your genuinely and consistently being here with me in a way that I have never experienced before; your trust in the process which has been strong enough to support me when I had none; and love that asked nothing from me, that didn’t change with my changing moods, that didn’t require me to be anything other than what I was, and that was patient enough to wait until I trusted it enough to come close to it. There is no way that I can adequately express how precious what I have been given here is, other than by taking it out, as best I can, into the rest of my life.”
 Kate, lecturer and trainer
  • “Alexander – a wise and insightful listener and a skilled and knowledgeable trainer. He is able to transform just by being his own authentic self. His presence is extremely powerful. I felt challenged and at the same time utterly accepted. Thank you Alexander. I learnt a lot from you when we met. You were extremely generous and sensitive. May I recommend you contact Alexander as soon as possible – you will feel larger and more substantial afterward.”
 Sarah McCloughry, DirectorAnrah Mind and Body
  • “Thank you for the time we spent together yesterday – the time seemed to whizz by and I found the whole experience really beneficial and at times quite emotional – as you can imagine for someone so driven I have never before allowed myself the time to reflect in the way that we did yesterday and it was greatly valued.”
 Regional Head of BusinessSt James’ Place
  • “Thank you for a generous and characteristically warm response. Coming on top of a truly mind-altering meeting, it reminded me of your Quality. Thank you for that meeting. Suddenly I realise that I have felt lonely for some time. I have worked at giving the market what I thought the market wanted. And all the time I kept the best of myself in reserve, rather than reveal the deepest and most passionate feelings I have about my work. It was a revelation that I could talk about my work in the way we did. I felt seen and understood. It was like water in a desert. Thank you, Alexander.”
 Director of a coaching business (Anonymous)