Cantor Faryn Rudnick
Prior to joining the MLRT family, Cantor Rudnick served as cantor at Temple Beth-El in Northbrook, IL, where she began her cantorial career after her ordination from the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music at Hebrew Union College in NYC in 2013. Cantor Rudnick is passionate about creating community, specifically for those with disabilities. In 2015, Cantor Rudnick was the co-recipient of the Chicago Federation’s Annual Samuel A. Goldsmith Award for her work in the field of inclusion.
Cantor Rudnick a proud member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees of the American Conference of Cantors, where she serves as Recording Secretary, and oversees the Communications Committee, Caring Committee, and the ACC’s Accessibility and Inclusion efforts.
Cantor Rudnick holds a Bachelor’s of Music in Music Education from Miami University (OH), and received her first master’s degree in Music Education from Montclair State University.
Prior to Cantorial School, Cantor Rudnick was a tenured teacher in the Oakland Public School District in NJ. She is married to Jack Rudnick and they are the proud parents of Hannah and George.
Cantor Galit Dadoun Cohen
Galit Dadoun-Cohen’s unique voice, combines a diverse Sephardic background with classical musical training. Born in Ashdod, Israel, she earned her Bachelor of Music and Artist Diploma from the Rubin Academy of Music of Tel Aviv University, her Master of Music from Brooklyn College – City University of New York and was ordained from the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion DFSSM in 2010. Since then, she has served as the Cantor of Temple B’nai Or in Morristown, N.J.
In 2014, she was named one of “Best New Jewish Music Voices” by the Forward’s “Soundtrack of Our Spirit”. In 2015, she published a chapter in “Voices in the Wilderness” Emerging Roles of Israeli Clergywomen;” she served on the Cantorial Assembly board for two years and chaired the NJ region, and in the fall of 2022, she was invited back by Hebrew Union College to teach in the DFSSM Cantorial School. An alum of the Clergy Leadership Program at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, she is passionate about empowering women’s voices and is deeply committed to teaching about Sephardi Jews, Israel and creating and reinforcing existing bridges between Israeli and the Diaspora.
Galit and her partner Joe, share the gratitude and joy of parenthood of their three daughters Danielle, Naomi, and Maya.
Cantor Juval Porat
Cantor Porat grew up both in Israel and Germany during his formative years and beyond. In Israel, he studied at the B’nai Akiva Yeshiva and earned a Master’s degree in Architecture, working in Berlin as an architect.
While in Architecture school, he served as a cantorial soloist at several congregations. The passion for singing and service leadership bred by those experiences led him to pursue cantorial studies at the newly established Institute of Cantorial Arts in Berlin, part of the Abraham Geiger College. His final academic year was spent at the Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem, and in June 2009, he was invested as the first Reform cantor to be trained in Germany since World War II.
Cantor Porat joined the Temple Beth Sholom family from Beth Chayim Chadashim, the world’s first synagogue founded by and for the LGBTQIA+ community in Los Angeles. Some of his professional highlights include being clergy-in-residence for several missions to Israel by A Wider Bridge, serving as Programming Committee Chair for the 2018 ACC (American Conference of Cantors)/GTM (Guild of Temple Musicians) Convention in Dallas, Texas where he sang with the Dallas Street Choir, attending and leading a workshop at Eighteen:22 | A global Network for Change Conference in Salzburg, Austria and speaking on LGBT Liturgy and service leader at Congregation Shirah Chadashah in Melbourne, Australia. Additionally, he is serving the American Conference of Cantors as an Executive Board member.
In addition to being a Reform Jewish clergy, his passions include mental health, yoga, animal welfare, veganism, and living sustainably in ways that ensure a healthy planet for future generations.
Cantor Alicia Stillman
Cantor Alicia Stillman comes to Temple Israel directly from sunny South Florida, where she spent the last decade serving as Cantor of Temple Judea. She is honored to make Boston her home, after a circuitous journey from northern New Jersey and New York to Florida, and back north once again.
Cantor Stillman has performed in Cantorial concerts in New York, Texas, and Israel, as well as creating an annual winter concert series in addition to a variety of Palm Beach area events; including Interfaith Thanksgiving Services, and singing with the Palm Beach Pops in their Holiday Concert at the Kravis Center. She served as the Cantorial Intern at New York City’s historic Central Synagogue, as well as a Star/Tisch Leadership Fellow while at HUC; additionally, she was blessed to be a recipient of the Temple Israel of Boston Cantorial Prize! She is a former board member of Orah No. County Hadassah, and a member of Actors Equity Association, Lamaze International, and the American Conference of Cantors, She is currently the co-chair of the Cantorial Alumni Association at HUC.
Cantor Stillman was ordained in 2013 at the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music of the Hebrew Union College (HUC). She has an extensive background in theater and music, and holds a master’s degree from HUC as well as a Bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University, after which she performed professionally in such theater favorites as Fiddler on the Roof, Grease, Annie, 1940’s Radio Hour, Into the Woods, and The Threepenny Opera.
Udi Bar-David
Udi’s classical music training began at the age of seven in Tel-Aviv, studying with Uzi Wiesel, supported by the American Israel Cultural Foundation. Later he came to the U.S. to study with Leonard Rose at the Juilliard School, and conducting at the Curtis Institute of Music with Max Rudolph.
Winner of the 1976 International Villa Lobos Competition in Brazil and the 1984 WFLN Young Instrumentalist Competition, Udi has appeared as a soloist with the Philly Pops under Peter Nero, and given recitals in Spain and California, appeared on the TODAY show and radio broadcasts with Network For New Music.
An acclaimed soloist, Udi performed with leading orchestras in Israel and recorded at the Jerusalem Music Center founded by Pablo Casals; served as the principal cellist in the International Youth Orchestra, the National Orchestra of New York, and with the American Ballet Theatre. He was a member of the Concerto Soloists of Philadlephia, and joined the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1987, of which he served on the Board of Directors and as the Artistic Coordinator for the Hear O Israel concert at the Core States Center.
Adam Guth
Adam is a veteran drummer who has worked with a who’s who of great Philadelphia musicians. A few include Jef Lee Johnson (George Duke, D’Angelo), Jamaaladeen Tacuma (Ornette Coleman, James ‘Blood’ Ulmer), and Steve Green (Breakwater, The Elevators). He has also been the first-call drummer at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel for almost 20 years.
Adam is a Soul drummer, not in terms of the genre but as an existential creed. He brings a quiet, spiritual energy to the ensemble and audience alike. “Music is sacred to me so I take my job very seriously. Success is contributing to making the music, the audience, and ensemble all feel uplifted.’”
Kevin Hanson
Guitarist, composer, and educator Kevin Hanson has enjoyed a career as a musician in an array of musical circles. As a touring and recording artist in the rock, jazz, RnB, and classical styles, he has delved deeply into an abundance of music and shared it with audiences the world over. His professional engagements include performances and recordings with The Roots, Jay Z, Usher, Jill Scott, Huffamoose, Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, Opera Philadelphia and many more.
He is an active songwriter and session guitarist who produces for his own band, The Fractals, and collaborates with countless artists. Calling Philadelphia home, Kevin currently teaches songwriting, music theory, and guitar studies at Temple University and Rowan University.
Dr. Ari Sussman
Praised for his “sophisticated writing” (GTM) and music that is “utterly magical” (Eighth Blackbird) and “weave(s) a trance-like mystical aura” (Zamir Chorale), Dr. Ari Sussman is a Philadelphia based hard-of-hearing pianist, clawhammer banjoist, and composer of vocal, chamber, orchestral, choral, and electronic music.
Sussman holds Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees with honors in Composition from the New England Conservatory of Music where he received the Donald Martino Award for Excellence in Composition, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Composition from the University of Michigan. In addition to serving as Director of Music at Main Line Reform Temple-Beth Elohim and Temple Adath Israel of the Main Line, Sussman is currently an Adjunct Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the the West Chester University of Pennsylvania Wells School of Music.
Joseph Tayoun
Joseph Tayoun, a second generation Lebanese American, is an accomplished Middle Eastern percussionist. He started playing at age eight at his family’s renowned Middle East Restaurant in Philadelphia where live authentic Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Armenian, Greek, and Israeli music and dance were performed nightly for forty years. Learning from many of the area’s top Middle Eastern players, Joe became adept at the many styles of drumming within these different traditions. He performs much of this repertoire with an ensemble at the Nile restaurant (the former Middle East Restaurant) in Philadelphia, and with other ensembles locally and nationally, including Jaffna, a band that combines styles of Middle Eastern and Indian music.
Having taught music in a New Jersey public school for years, he currently teaches drumming at St. Maron’s Hall in the heart of Philadelphia’s Lebanese community, in part, through PFP’s FAME program. In the summers, he teaches at Al-Bustan Arabic Day Camp along with Middle Eastern dancer Michele Tayoun. He also conducts workshops at conferences and universities.
