While most students were relishing the final days of winter break, the Shabbatones, Penn’s Jewish a cappella group, were busy serenading southern Jewish communities at synagogues, Jewish community centers, Jewish day schools and old age homes.
Between Jan. 3 and 10, the Shabbatones traveled from New Orleans to Houston on their annual winter tour. Over the course of their stay in the South, the group gave 11 performances for approximately 1,450 people, according to tour manager and College sophomore Alex Haber.
Both Haber and Shabbatones President Lior Melnick, a College sophomore, emphasized that the annual winter tour — which has in the past taken the Shabbatones to London and Miami — is both musically and socially driven.
Melnick, who considers performing with the Shabbatones his “cultural Jewish outlet,” explained that tours are opportunities “for us to have a fun week together, but it is equally important to spread our music and our name to communities that we might not be able to meet during the semester or ever.”
Additionally, touring provides a different atmosphere from performing at Penn. On tour, “nobody knows us. Our audience genuinely wants to hear the music which lends itself to an enthusiastic audience like we would get at Penn but for different reasons,” Haber said.
This year’s tour took the Shabbatones to Houston for its large and thriving Jewish community and to New Orleans for its Jewish venues and personal connection to the group — it is the hometown of College junior and Shabbatones member Justin Sackett.
In Houston, the Shabbatones partnered with the Houston Jewish Community Center’s newly formed Jewish a cappella group, the jTunes, for a performance at the Brith Shalom synagogue in front of an audience of around 650.
College junior Rachel Klein, Shabbatones musical director, singled out the Brith Shalom performance as not only the highlight of the tour but “one of our best performances.”
Brittany Horwitt, the Houston JCC’s arts and culture program coordinator, thought this performance with both the new jTunes and the established Shabbatones produced an “inspiring and successful collaboration.”
In addition to performing, the Shabbatones hosted workshops to teach students at Jewish day schools what a cappella is and how to do it.
Klein explained that “it’s really exciting to see the kids on stage … whether they get [a cappella] or not. We don’t really look for precision. We really just want to get the kids into it.”
Although the Shabbatones were busy with scheduled performances and workshops everyday, they found time to give an impromptu and memorable performance on Bourbon Street for locals of New Orleans.
“It wasn’t a formal performance. We just set up shop on Bourbon Street and sang for about 45 minutes. It was amazing. We had a pretty decently sized crowd watching us and giving donations,” Melnick said.
Although exhausted from their winter tour, the Shabbatones are excited for their upcoming spring semester events, which include competing in the national Jewish Kol Haolam A Cappella Competition in early April and releasing their fifth CD, a 10th anniversary album, later this semester.
