ABOUT REBECCA
Rebecca Garfein, celebrated mezzo-soprano and Cantor, has appeared in numerous concerts, cabarets and recitals throughout the United States, Israel and Europe.
In 2005, Rebecca made her Carnegie Hall debut in a benefit concert for the Folksbiene Yiddish Theater featuring the acclaimed Mandy Patinkin. In 2003, she made her debut at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in a concert celebrating the release of Dr. Ruth Westheimer’s book, “Musically Speaking.” Rebecca made her NYC Town Hall Debut in 2012 with Neil Sedaka and Jay Black in another benefit concert for the Folksbiene Yiddish Theatre. Since 2016 until today, Rebecca has been playing the role of “Fran Drescher” in Abigail Pogrebin’s musical, Stars of David all over the United States.
A native of Tallahassee, Florida, where her father was the Rabbi, Rebecca has been a featured soloist with the Ra’a’na’na Orchestra and the Zamir Chorale at the Jerusalem Theater in Israel and at the 350th anniversary concert of the Curacao Jewish Community in Curacao. A highlight of 2018 was performing as the Narrator in Naamah’s Ark with NYC Master Voices under the baton of Ted Sperling with soprano and Tony award winner, Victoria Clark as Naamah. In 2016, Rebecca was a featured “Diva” in Congregation B’nai Torah’s Best Divas of American Chazzanut (cantorial) Concert in Boca Raton, Florida. In 2020 during the covid pandemic, Rebecca was chosen by JVocals as one of 16 female cantors worldwide for a video recording of Yerushalayim Shel Zahav that has over half a million views and is still climbing.
Rebecca has been a participant in the opera program at DiCapo Opera in New York City and at the Aspen Music Festival Opera Theatre. As a teen, Rebecca was a participant in the Boston University Young Artists’ vocal program at the Tanglewood Music Festival in Massachusetts where, to her delight, she met Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland and sang under the direction of John Williams.
In 1997, Rebecca was invited to participate in the Jewish Cultural Festival in Berlin, Germany and was the first female Cantor to give a solo concert in the same city her grandfather of blessed memory fled. At the 1998 Berlin Jewish Cultural Festival, she became the first female Cantor to preside in a German synagogue, and released a CD of the live recording of the 1997 Berlin concert, “Sacred Chants of the Contemporary Synagogue.”
On November 10, 2005 at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York, Rebecca presented the concert and historic CD debut of her album,“Golden Chants in America…Commemorating 350 years of Jewish Music, 1654-2004,” Including music from the Spanish-Portuguese Jews, the synagogue and the Yiddish and Broadway theater, the CD is the first U.S. recording to feature Jewish music spanning 350 years of life in America. Dr. Ruth, who wrote the introduction to the CD, also introduced the historic concert.
Rebecca is also a featured soloist on two recordings from the Sacred Music Press, Celebrating the Past and Present, honoring the 50th anniversary of the School of Sacred Music, 1999, and Kol Sasson Kol Simcha, a commemoration of the 125th anniversary of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, 2001.
Rebecca graduated cum laude from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music in Houston with a degree in vocal performance and opera. In 1993, she received her Master’s Degree in Sacred Music and Cantorial Investiture from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) and in May 2018, Rebecca received her Honorary Doctorate in Music also from HUC-JIR. For 23 years, Rebecca served as Senior Cantor of Congregation Rodeph Sholom, NYC and was their first female Senior Cantor in the history of the congregation.
Rebecca is a member of the American Conference of Cantors (ACC) and the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA).