Singers from the Baltimore chapter of HaZamir: The International Jewish Teen Choir will join nearly 400 of their peers from around the U.S. and Israel in late March for a three-day musical experience that concludes with a gala performance at the prestigious Carnegie Hall in New York City on March 23.

The three-day annual HaZamir International Festival is held with the goal of bringing Jewish teens together to share culture, music and values and create international friendships by introducing teens with a shared interest who otherwise never would have met.

The experience is also beneficial for students in exploring their Jewish identities through music during the multiday rehearsal period before the concert when they will practice a mix of popular music, classic Israeli and Jewish American pieces in English and Hebrew and several original pieces composed for the group.

“The music is really our text,” said Erika Schon, the conductor of HaZamir Baltimore. “That’s an exciting thing, to use Jewish music in this way to teach children about their identity, to build their leadership and their confidence in who they are and to set them on a path so that when they go to college, they’re able to navigate some of the more difficult aspects of being on campus today and they’re able to combat antisemitism. They are able to stand up for Israel and understand who they are.”

Schon said that the various HaZamir chapters all learn a shared music repertoire from September to March, so they all have some level of familiarity with the songs they’ll be working on together during the festival, which is where everything gets polished to a high standard of excellence.

She added that the songs in the repertoire are carefully chosen to represent this moment in Jewish history.

Schon said another part of the festival she looks forward to is the celebration of Jewish culture, especially during Shabbat, as the groups will get to New York on Thursday to practice for three days over the weekend before the Sunday afternoon performance.

“HaZamir is truly welcoming and unique because it welcomes Jews from all different pathways, students who identify Jewishly through any of the roads to Jewish identity. And on Shabbat, we really dignify different paths towards Jewish engagement,” Schon said.

Schon said they offer services for several different denominations, including reserving space for people who aren’t participating in a formal prayer service at all.

The group will practice music a capella on those days so as not to use any instruments. Schon said it’s an amazing display of the diversity within the Jewish community.

“When you walk around on Shabbat morning, you can visit different settings for Jewish prayer. As a conductor, I will walk around many minyans and just take such great joy in seeing our teenagers engage Jewishly with one another in a respectful, beautiful way, regardless of what their learning is at home, what their Jewish education is,” Schon said.

And from the perspective of a teen participant, the event is a way to expand the horizons of Jewish community with the add-on of being able to sing together at a high-level destination.

Max Goodwin, a teen leader with HaZamir Baltimore who participated in the festival last year, said that traveling and meeting the large number of people who all love to sing was an experience that was hard to put into words.

Goodwin said that when you see so many peers together with the same interest, it’s hard to fully wrap your head around it.

“I have met some of my closest friends now [through the festival]. It’s such an amazing experience to be able to see all these different people. Each person is so unique, and yet there’s so many similarities,” Goodwin said. “It’s such a comforting place to be able to be in a space where it’s only Jewish people, and you get to learn more about your culture and where you came from. You are just who you are and where your family has come from.”

After the concert on March 23, HaZamir members from the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., chapters will perform another concert on March 25 at the Gordon Center for Preforming Arts with the Ashkelon HaZamir chapter, the group from the Baltimore Jewish community’s sister city in Israel, and the Kol Rinah adult choir.

Schon said the second concert will be a chance for local residents who couldn’t attend the Carnegie Hall show to hear the singers perform.

bhamelin@midatlanticmedia.com