About Gedalia

Early Life

Originally from Queens NY, I grew up in a Modern Orthodox home full of Torah, tefillah and music. My experience with Jewish song leading goes as far as back as supporting my father, the rabbi of our shul, in harmony for kabbalat shabbat and even High Holiday services. My love for singing and harmony continued through high school and a gap year in Israel until I reached Yeshiva University (YU), where I joined Y-Studs A Cappella and my professional musical career began.

University

Singing and serving as the musical director for Y-Studs A Cappella opened up my world. I travelled the world with the Y-Studs and similar groups including The Maccabeats, Pella and Six13, sharing vocal music and inspiring Jewish community from children’s concerts in Berlin, Germany, to wedding singing in Cartagena, Colombia. Even when performing locally in and around NYC, my eyes were opened to the vast applications of music to Jewish life and celebration: accompanying a Teaneck minyan’s 3rd inaugural restaurant crawl; singing at a seudat hoda’ah in Brooklyn for a husband donating a kidney to his wife; as well as the standard work of hopping from synagogue to youth center performing pre-shabbat music. During this time I was also introduced to the vast and beautiful gamut of Jewish practice and experience, singing at countless bnei mitzvah and other events in Orthodox, Conservative and Reform settings.

I finished YU with a Bachelor’s in Music and began teaching at Carmel Academy in Greenwich, CT. In my classroom, music was not as much Mozart and Beethoven as Sheet Music Twister (left foot, C sharp!); a Simchat Beit Hasho’evah relay race with “trumpet” noisemakers for the student “temple-accompanists”; and children getting up at the beginning of class each day to share what music they love and frequently hear in their homes, from Justin Bieber to Matisyahu to the Grateful Dead. My classroom motto is “music is everywhere”.

Rising Song Residency