Cantor Installed at Shabbat Services, September 8: Cantor Peter Halpern was installed as Temple Emanuel's new cantor at a special Shabbat service on Friday, September 8.

Posing before the service is Temple Emanuel's Clergy Team. From left, Senior Rabbi Jerome P. David, Assistant Rabbi Geri Newburge, Rabbi Educator Debbie Cohen, and Cantor Halpern.

Participating in Cantor Peter's installation service were his sister, Cantor Audrey Halpern, from Comack, New York, and Cantor Israel Goldstein, director of the School of Sacred Music at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, New York. Cantor Halpern and his sister are the only brother-sister team to study for the cantorate at the school.

Cantor Peter Halpern joined Temple Emanuel in July 2006.

Peter grew up in Plainview, Long Island where he took part in several school musicals and was inspired and encouraged by his High School choir director, Ronald Cohen.  His live for music grew deeper through exposure to opera by his first voice teacher, Teresa Arrigo.  By the time he reached the age of 17, he had been a finalist in the Liederkranz Foundation Vocal Competition at the Lincoln Center in New York City and was singing lead tenor in a barbershop quartet.  He was granted a Merit Scholarship to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester where he studied voice with Jan de Gaetani and graduated with Distinction.

At 19 he sang his first High Holy Day services for a congregation of 3,000.  This experience and three wonderful years of service to Congregational Ohabai Shalom in Nashville, Tennessee prompted him to intensify his commitment to Judaism and return to the Hebrew Union College in New York City for a 4-year course of study.  He reeceived the Morris Smith Prize for excellence in studies and was Invested as Cantor in 1988.  Upon graduation, Cantor Halpern accepted a position with the Liberal Jewish Community of Amsterdam, Holland.  He sang as regular Cantor in the Hague and Amsterdam and periodically davened services and sang concerts in various Synagogues in England, Belgium and Germany.  In addition to his work as Cantor, he sang several opera roles and appeared in many classical concerts.  His early experiences with close harmony held him in good stead, as he also recorded extensively with Internationally acclaimed Renaissance ensemble Cappella Pratensis, concertizing with them in Poland, Norway, France and Japan from 1991 to 1998.

His homeland eventually beckoned him to return, and in the summer of 1998 he assumed the position of full-time Cantor at Temple Adat Elohim in Thousand Oaks, California.

Cantor Halpern composed “Seht die Lichter,” a group of fifteen prayer settings for Shabbat during his years in Europe, which was published in June 2000 by Transcontinental Music Publishers in New York.

Cantor Halpern's Music Books and CD at Transcontinental Music