JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Is this the real life? Or is this just fantasy? Before our very eyes, a Jewish a cappella group has produced the Hanukkah parody song and video to leave all others in the dust. Move over, Maccabeats, “Bohemian Chanukah,” a parody of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” is the musical equivalent of being wrapped in a plush…
Has Hanukkah started early? Yesterday we wrote about and today we have the pleasure of bringing you yet another Hanukkah-themed cover of a song – well, actually, two. A capella groups of the world, the Forward now challenges you to bring us covers in this style for the next six days, so we can have…
Kevin Olusola, Ben Bram, Scott Hoying, Mitch Grass, Kirstie Maldonado and Avi Kaplan of Pentatonix at the Grammys // Getty Images Back when we rounded up 11 Jewish Things To Watch For At the Grammys, we directed your attention to the main televised performance that featured on screen. But a few hours before Tony Bennett…
Listen to Pentatonix, and you’ll be sure that you hear instruments. In fact, it is an a cappella quintet of young singers — four men and one woman — who perform without any accompaniment, and manage to make a remarkable range of sounds in musical styles ranging from pop to electronica to R&B and dubstep….
Remember when the most annoying part of the holiday season was the fact that jack o’ lanterns had barely made it into pumpkin pies before the radio started playing “Jingle Bells”? For Jews it seems there’s something new to dread this holiday season, besides drowning in Christmas jingles and a barrage of Santa commercials: the…
Apparently the world of Jewish a capella is more competitive than you think. After achieving overnight success with “Candlelight,” the Maccabeats, Yeshiva University’s all-male a capella group, is back with another surefire YouTube hit, “Purim Song” (no points for creative naming, guys!). This time, the story of Esther, Ahasverosh, Haman and Mordechai is set to…
Up there in the top five least favorite Jewish traditions is the custom of avoiding live instrumental music between the end of Passover and Lag B’aomer. Being a people of hairsplitting legalists, this custom has engendered a whole new genre, called “s’fira music” — albums upon albums of permissible a cappella tunes (from all male…
