Regional Teen Songleading Fellowships

SUG Regional Teen Songleader cohorts are designed to provide on-site mentorship from a local songleading mentor who can visit each teen where they songlead, work with each teen to establish success metrics for the year, and, most importantly, connect their mentee with organizations, institutions, and communities within their region to support their professional development.

 

A key component of each regional fellowship is that each host community will use their cohort of teens to provide music in more communal gatherings. This has the dual benefit of giving teens more on the ground experience leading with people, and it increases the amount of singing that happens in Jewish communal spaces.

 

The SUG Regional Fellowships were created in response to conversations with Jewish community leaders from camps, congregations, and organizations who struggle to find songleaders for their specific programs or events.  Even more concerning, we learned that the wider local community in many parts of the North America are lacking a pipeline of songleaders for day camps, overnight camps, religious school music, early childhood programs and youth events. 

Through the SUG Fellowship, teens are supported in growing skills to lead religious school music, will be better trained and better positioned to fill a need in a local JCC camp next summer, to lead musical experiences for the Federation's Israel program, give a more complete Taste of Camp, or deepen the meaning of a communal day of action. They learned to be community builders through music.

​

The support for our staff, teachers, programming on the ground, outreach and mentorship is made possible from generous gifts from clergy who are passionate about pipelining and nurtuing young songleaders.

​

We thank: Rabbis Michael White, Rob Nosanchuk, Ken Chasen, Judith Siegal, Ben David, Micah Greenstein, Peter Berg and Dan Levin and Cantors Danielle Rodnizki, Brad Hyman, Irena Altshul, Jennifer Frost, Alexander Kurland, Tracey Scher, Lori Shapiro, Amanda Kleinman, Ross Wolman, Billy Tiep and Shanna  Zell.

 

Regional Cohorts for 2023-2024

 

Westchester/NYC, NY

We ran a  Metro NY cohorot weekend retreat in White Plains for  in February  2024 for 7 teens from New Jersey, Queens, Westchester, and Ithaca NY.

​

During the retreat the teens led worship for the congregation, spent time learning things like how to successfully teach a song, learned new repertoire, created programming, gained confidence, and led religious school music, with other teens who share a love of singing Jewish music.  Home hospitality and meals were provided. We also spend a lovely evening watching a master teacher and songleader, with our friend Rachel Chang.

​

This retreat was followed by connection with the teens mentors and ongoing support for next steps of the songleading journey.

 

Liz Leadership Teen Initiative of the South East

A weekend intensive for teens connected to URJ Camp Coleman or NFTY, with follow up engagement between teens and local communities to continue to enhance skill building and song leadership. Stay tuned for information about Fall 2024, September 20-22!

​

Each regional cohort is designed differently, with intentional focus on the unique needs, structures, and demographics of each community. If you think there is a need and interest for more targeted regional songleading support in your community, reach out to Rosalie to talk more about what's possible.