Cantor Moshe Ganchoff

חזן משה גענטשאף

21 songs 3 albums

(1904 – 1997) Known with deep respect throughout his life as “the cantor’s cantor.” His many recitative compositions seamlessly combine eastern European improvisatory tradition with subtle innovations, reflecting the theological and literary as well as the emotional implications of the prayer texts. Born in Odessa, his family settled initially in Toledo, Ohio, where, by coincidence, a number of great cantors served and where a general appreciation for hazzanut prevailed. In Toledo, as a youth, Ganchoff sang in the choir of Cantor Simon Zemachson, who also conducted and wrote for the choir. Also in his Toledo days, he was inspired by such celebrated guest cantors as Mendel Shapiro and Cantor Aryeh Leib Rutman, who thus shaped his artistic horizons. Later, as a young man, he went to New York, there he benefited from tutorial work with Hazzan Joshua Lind, and he sang in synagogue choirs directed by such respected choirmasters as Leo Low (2) and Meyer Machtenberg, and with such star cantors as Yossele Rosenblatt and Mordechai Hershman. By the 1940s Ganchoff had emerged as a star cantor. Through the 1970s he served a number of the New York area’s most prestigious traditional synagogues; recorded some of his own settings as well as pieces from the classical European synagogue repertoire; and made concert tours of Europe, Central and South America, and Israel. Ganchoff taught cantorial students for many years at the Hebrew Union College School Of Sacred Music Chorus, influencing entire generations of young cantors.