Sh'ma Koleinu (Hear our Voice Oh Lord) by Max Roth

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The song was recorded at the NYU Dolan Recording Studio in January 2017. Many thanks to Michail Oikonomidis, Jason Rostkowski and Charles Craig for the audio and video work.

SH'MA KOLEINU = HEAR OUR VOICE OH LORD.
A cry for God's pity and compassion, introductory to the Confessional (Vidui) in the liturgy for Yom Kippur.
Cast us not off in our old age, when our strength fails us. Do not forsake us.

The song was composed by Max Roth in 2010.

Max Roth was born in Corona, New York, on November 20, 1929. His father was an ordained Rabbi from Czechoslovakia. His mother was born in Hungary. Roth showed an early talent for singing, which was nurtured at home and at school. As a boy alto he sang in the synagogue choir of Cantor Joshua Weiser.

Roth studied at the New York College of Music, and earned his Bachelor of Sacred Music and Cantor-Educator credentials from the Hebrew Union School of Sacred Music in 1958. He served as a Cantor in Greenwich, Connecticut, and from 1960 to 1967 at University Synagogue, Brentwood, California.

Pursuing a long-term dream, in 1967 Roth entered the Hebrew union College-Jewish Institute of Religion for a second time. Three years later he was ordained as a Rabbi. From 1970 to 1981 he served in Cleveland, Ohio; 5 years at Silver's Temple and for 6 years at the Park Synagogue. From 1981 to 1995 he was Sr. rabbi at Temple Beth Shalom in Sarasota, Florida. After "semi-retirement" Roth served congregations in Boynton Beach, Florida and in Columbus, Georgia.

Having fully retired in November of 2009, Roth settled with his beloved Florence in Great Barrington, Mass. Pursuant to her death in February, 2015, he moved on to Lenox, where he presently resides, a stone's throw from Tanglewood.

Of the 7 songs in the series here presented, six are Roth's originals. The seventh, L'David HaShem Ori (Ps. 27) by Cantor Pinchas Spector (1880-1951) was discovered by Roth in manuscript form in the Ethnomusicological Division of the Hebrew University Library,
in Jerusalem, Israel. Roth reworked and adapted Spector's chant into an art song. All seven songs are arranged for piano by Israel Edelson, who was a protege of Leonard Bernstein.

Sh'ma Koleinu, was singled out in 2013 for distinction and performance at the annual conference of the American Conference of Cantors and The
Guild of Temple Musicians. Another of Roth's songs was turned into a concert piece for cello and piano by Paul Pinchas Schoenfeld. He called it ZEMER.
"varaiations on Yismach Moshe by Rabbi Max Roth." It was premiered by Yehuda Hanani, cellist and artistic director of Close Encounters With Music
at the Mahaiwe Arts Center in Great Barrington, April, 2016.

Roth has two sons, Michael and Joseph and two granddaughters Jamie and Rachael. He continues to write music and poetry, and is preparing to publish a small collection of his poems. Along with more music.