Who knew the man behind the Brooklyn homecomings of
Jay-Z and Barbra Streisand had a thing for heimische melodies?
Bruce Ratner, the developer and majority owner of the
Barclays Center arena in Brooklyn, which opened last September with a Jay-Z show
and hosted borough native Streisand a month later, holds a special place in his
heart for cantorial music. “My parents are both from Eastern European descent, so that type of Jewish music is in my blood,” Ratner told JTA. “I grew up going to my Conservative synagogue in Cleveland, where they had an amazing cantor who I absolutely loved to listen to. And as I got older, I was always buying cantor CDs. The music is just so refined.”
Ratner, the chairman and chief executive of the real estate development firm Forest City Ratner Companies, is taking personal pride in having spearheaded efforts to put on the first Jewish event at the venue: a Feb. 28 concert featuring the renowned Israeli-born violinist Itzhak Perlman sharing the stage with Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot. The Barclays performance comes on the heels of the pair's recent collaboration, “Eternal Echoes: Songs and Dances for the Soul,” an album of Jewish music released in August.
In an age where klezmer music has gained a following in the downtown jazz scene and Yiddish culture has experienced something of a revival, Ratner is optimistic that between Brooklyn's hipsters and Chasidim, the show will find an audience.
“I know not everyone listens to cantorial music today, but if they really listen, they’ll find such a history behind it,” said Ratner, who became acquainted with Perlman 30 years ago when their daughters attended private school together in Manhattan. “Growing up, cantors used to be treated like rock stars, and I think kids today unfamiliar with it will really find this concert enjoyable.”
A century ago, it was hardly uncommon for Jewish cantors to perform at venues like Barclays. Cantors such as Yossele Rosenblatt and Zeidel Rovener were mainstream stars, recording popular records and gracing the stages of Madison Square Garden and Carnegie Hall.
Only about a third of Barclays' 19,000 seats are going to be made available for the Perlman-Helfgot show, but it's still likely to be one of the largest cantorial concerts in the United States in nearly a century.
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