The Malibu cantor will perform Aug. 24 at the Ford Amphitheatre with the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony.
By Melonie Magruder / Special to The Malibu Times
“If eyes are the windows to the soul, then the tongue is the pen of the heart,” Marcelo Gindlin, cantor for the Malibu Jewish Center and Synagogue, said in describing his source of inspiration in Jewish liturgical music. “I see God when I sing.”
That the metaphor is a bit fractured can be forgiven when you consider that Gindlin arrived in Malibu from Argentina just seven years ago speaking not a word of English.
Yet, Gindlin’s stewardship of music at the synagogue since then has yielded not just a congregation deeply defined by prayer services guided through his soaring tenor, but the release of several CDs of liturgical and children’s music, and regular appearances with the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony, including one slated for Aug. 24 at the Ford Amphitheatre in Hollywood.
The cantor comes from a musical family. His father was a singer at the famed Teatro Colón Opera House in Buenos Aires. Gindlin, himself, discovered musical therapy.
“I realized how powerful music is to physical and psychological rehabilitation,” he said. “This is the only path to spiritual development.”
He earned two degrees in music therapy from El Salvador University and was certified as a cantor and a baal tefilah, or “master of prayers,” by the Latin American Rabbinical Seminary in Argentina. He quickly became a popular teacher, composer and choir director, and received international awards for his liturgical compositions.
“There is actually a large Jewish community throughout South America,” Gindlin said. “But when terrorists bombed the Israeli Embassy in the early ’90s, I started to think about coming to America [a pro-Palestinian group took credit for blowing up the Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992].
Gindlin approaches his position as cantor with the MJC&S with utmost reverence (“I never wear shorts when I go shopping,” he said. “I am clergy and must show respect to my congregants and my God.”), but believes that the music he writes should be lively and spiritual.
“The music I bring to this congregation should be full of hope, not depressing,” he said. “With the High Holy Days, I am teaching children and adults here to read the Torah in the correct melody. But, with other synagogue music, I am from Argentina. So the music is big. I believe the way kids pray is through singing and dancing.”
Gindlin approaches his choir direction as a healing service as well as an expression of praise.
“If someone is troubled, they can’t sing properly,” he said. “I try to untie the knots that stop someone from singing. When they can breathe better, they sing better and they can pray better.”
Gindlin will combine a mix of liturgical Hebrew and Ladino (the language of Sephardic Jews from Spain) songs when he performs on Aug. 24 with the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony in a concert billed as “A Patchwork of Cultures-The Sephardic-Latino Connection.”
“You know, I stopped listening to Latin music for a while and got depressed,” he said. “You must have that Latin beat for music to lift you. People in Brazil might not have anything to eat, but with music, they are happy.”
Accordingly, he recorded “Shabbat and Holidays with Cantor Marcelo & Friends” with distinct Latin rhythms, accented with castanets, and many songs in Ladino.
Gindlin’s sister, Mariana Gindlin, is cantor at the Temple Sinai in Glendale and is studying at the Rabbinical Academy for Jewish Religion. She shares her brother’s passion for music as healing prayer.
“Music was our invented world,” she said. “My first memory is of us going to see our father sing at the main synagogue. Dad marked us deeply with his passion for Judaism and music. Marcelo and I both have different styles and tastes, but we are both very represented by Jewish music.”
Meanwhile, Cantor Gindlin is settling into beachside Shabbat services.
“I have just signed a contract here for another seven years,” the cantor said. “I am very ‘bashert.’ That’s Yiddish meaning ‘blessed.'”
Tickets to the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony concert on Aug, 24 at the Ford Amphitheatre can be obtained by calling 323.46. 3673 or online at www.FordTheatres.org