Cantorial Soloist (Classical Style)

Shoshana Shay

Shoshana Shay was raised in eastern Pennsylvania and graduated from Bryn Mawr College with a music major from Haverford College. For ten years she was alternately soprano and mezzo soloist at Congregation Beth Sholom in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, and sang as Cantorial Soloist or in professional quartets at many of the synagogues in the Philadelphia area. Last year she participated as our soprano in Temple Beth-El’s professional quartet singing for the High Holy Day services. In 2005, she also appeared at Temple Beth-El in our Gala Musical Evening.

As a professionally trained classical singer, Shoshana has performed widely both in the U.S.A. and abroad, and in 1992 presented concerts in Guangxi Province, China as the first Western performer in the region. Her operatic roles have included dramatic heroines such as Tosca, Aida, Musetta, Amelia (Un Ballo in Maschera) and Madama Butterfly in New York, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Philadelphia and Edinburgh, Scotland. She also enjoys introducing unusual music to new listeners in a variety of eclectic song recitals. Her recordings include Love Songs of Robert Burns; The Thistle & the Rose, Songs of Robert Burns, Revelation in the Courthouse Park(world premiere), and Shimon Gewirtz’s Your People Are Mine. Shoshana works for a non-profit educational organization in St. Petersburg.