Esther Ghan Firestone (1925 – 28 May 2015) was the first female

cantor A cantor or chanter is a person who leads people in singing or sometimes in prayer. In formal Jewish worship, a cantor is a person who sings solo verses or passages to which the choir or congregation responds. In Judaism, a cantor sings and lead ...

in Canada, although she was not ordained. She began as a cantor in the mid-1950s at Toronto’s Temple Beth-El, and worked in Toronto at Temple Beth-El (mid-1950s to mid-1960s), Temple Emanu-El (1977), and later at

Congregation Habonim Toronto Congregation Habonim Toronto, founded in 1954, is a liberal reform synagogue located at 5 Glen Park Avenue in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and one of the first Holocaust refugee/survivor congregations to develop in Canada. Although currently independ ...

from 1985 until some time in 2015. She was also a member of Kol Nashim (Hebrew for “All Women”), a sextet of female lay cantors founded in 1987. Aside from her cantorial work, she was a singer; after training as a pianist in Winnipeg and giving several recitals in Manitoba, she began voice studies in 1944 in Toronto with Nina de Gedeonoff and at the TCM with Emmy Heim. In 1948 she won second prize in an international scholarship contest sponsored by

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...

. Her first recital in Toronto was in 1950 at what was then called

Eaton Auditorium The Carlu is an historic event space in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Opened in 1930 and known as the eponymous "Eaton's Seventh Floor", the venue was restored and reopened in 2003, renamed for its original architect. The Carlu is one of Toronto's be ...

(now the Carlu), with her uncle accompanying her on violin. She later sang on

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’s Canadian Cavalcade from 1949 to 1951, and on its Stardust program between 1957 and 1960. In 1951, she made her operatic debut with the

CBC Opera Company The CBC Opera Company (CBCOC) was a Canadian opera company established by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation with the purposes of performing operas for live broadcast on CBC Radio. Established in 1948, Charles Jennings served as chairman of the ...

, playing Musetta in Puccini’s ''La Bohème''; she also performed with the

Toronto Symphony Orchestra The Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) is a Canadian orchestra based in Toronto, Ontario. Founded in 1906, the TSO gave regular concerts at Massey Hall until 1982, and since then has performed at Roy Thomson Hall. The TSO also manages the Toronto ...

and the

Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra is an American symphony orchestra located in Buffalo, New York led by Music Director JoAnn Faletta. Its primary performing venue is Kleinhans Music Hall, which is a National Historic Landmark. Each season it p ...

, and in concerts at the

CNE Bandshell The CNE Bandshell is an open-air concert venue in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located at Exhibition Place on the shores of Lake Ontario. Built in 1936, it hosts the annual music program of the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) and is also us ...

. She also worked as a choirmaster and arranger of music, most notably of an Israeli-Canadian peace song, '' Lay Down Your Arms''. She also conducted the YMHA Choral Group, the Toronto Hadassah Women's Choir (1967-74), and the J.C.C. Singers (1980s), who recorded folk songs in 1984. In 1971 and 1973, with three of her children, she recorded ''Let's Sing English Songs'', a collection of 52 songs for distribution in Japan by the Tokyo Kodomo Club. She was also co-founder (along with

Eli Rubenstein Eli Rubenstein (born 1959) is a Holocaust educator, writer, and filmmaker. He is currently the religious leader of Congregation Habonim Toronto at Toronto synagogue founded by Holocaust survivors. He is also the National Director of March of th ...

) and conductor of the Habonim Youth Choir.

Biography

She was born as Esther Cohen, and her mother's maiden name was Ghan. Her mother had fled to Canada to escape the

pogrom A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russia ...

s in Ukraine, where she had been imprisoned and assaulted and had faced great poverty. Esther's uncle suggested she adopt the stage name of Esther Ghan for the sake of her career. She later married Paul Firestone and had six children: Debbie, Shawn,

Jay A jay is a member of a number of species of medium-sized, usually colorful and noisy, passerine birds in the Crow family (biology), family, Corvidae. The evolutionary relationships between the jays and the magpies are rather complex. For examp ...

, Danny, Ari and Hillary; Hillary died of ovarian cancer in 2009.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Firestone, Esther Ghan 1925 births 2015 deaths Hazzans Women hazzans Jewish Canadian musicians Canadian people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent

Biography

Further reading

References