Panel: The Relationship Between Music and Prayer

Featuring: Ben Caplan, Jardena Gertler-Jaffe,  Ari Posner  and Rabbi Claudio Jodokovsky

2pm – Free Event

Congregation Agudas Israel Synagogue – 715 McKinnon Ave.

Ben Caplan http://www.bencaplan.ca/

Ben Caplan is best known as a singer-songwriter and musician. He has released three albums to critical acclaim and actively tours with his band in twenty-eight countries. Caplan’s third studio album, comprised of the music from Old Stock, was released in June of 2018. Though Ben Caplan is best known as a songwriter, his first experiences as a performer were in the theatre. He spent many years training, performing, and directing in the theatre before leaving it behind to dedicate his full attention to music.

Jardena Gertler-Jaffe jardenasings.com

Canadian/American soprano Jardena Gertler-Jaffe has been praised for her genuine and intelligent performance, as well as her creativity on and off the stage. Jardena is passionate about finding ways that the vocal arts can challenge, transform, and innovate in the twenty-first century. Saskatoon audiences last saw Jardena as Frasquita in Saskatoon Opera’s 2022 production of Carmen. She has appeared as a soloist with the Broad Street Orchestra (NY), The Orchestra Now, Victoria Baroque, and the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra. Jardena is the founder of Our Singing Bodies, an ongoing artistic project which treats the singer’s body as the site for the negotiation of power and identity. Jardena recently received her M.M. degree from the selective Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard College Conservatory where she studied with Lorraine Nubar and Stephanie Blythe. Jardena holds a B.Mus. and M.A. (Ethnomusicology) from the University of Toronto, and is an alumna of Sarasota Opera’s Young Artist Program and the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme.  An interpreter of Yiddish art song and Jewish liturgical works, Jardena has worked as a cantorial soloist in synagogues in the United States and Canada, and performed at Jewish Music conferences and festivals in Quebec and Ontario.

Ari Posner www.arimusic.com

Ari is a fixture in Canadian film and television, having scored series such as Netflix/CBC’s Anne, X Company, Blood and Fury: America’s Civil War, and the critically acclaimed TV series Flashpoint, as well as many feature films. The music composer’s repertoire spans from long-format work to ads to animated series, and everything in between. Ari has also worked extensively with a variety of synagogues composing musical renditions of traditional prayers.