The Jewish Theological Seminary
H. L. Miller Cantorial School and College of Jewish Music are two schools devoted to Jewish musical studies. They train select advanced students as hazzanim (cantors) for congregational service or as teachers of Jewish music, choral directors, composers, or research scholars. The H. L. Miller Cantorial School awards the diploma of hazzan, and the College of Jewish Music awards the master's degree in sacred music.
Students are enrolled in both schools full-time and are expected to complete the diploma program and the master of sacred music degree simultaneously, preferably within a five-year period, leading to a career of service, through the joys of music, to the Jewish community.
Students also have the option of earning an MA in Jewish Education from the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education or an MA from The Graduate School while pursuing their cantorial studies.
A Message From the Dean
The cantorate is a dazzling and developing profession. Hazzanim have for hundreds of years led Jews in prayer. Today's hazzan has the added responsibility of being the Jewish community's fantastic musical presence.
The course of study at H. L. Miller Cantorial School and College of Jewish Music trains hazzanim to become religious role models and teachers of Judaism through music. Students who are musically gifted deepen their knowledge of the Hebrew language, the sacred and secular Jewish musical tradition, Jewish history, rabbinic literature, and the music of the Western world. Students are taught to utilize this potpourri of information to transmit the grandeur of the Jewish past and present to klal Yisrael.
Thus, students are trained to conduct volunteer or professional choirs, compose new music while transmitting the treasured chants of the past, and teach adults and children. Future cantors are taught to add to the beauty of Jewish life-cycle celebrations through liturgy and music.
The goal of H. L. Miller Cantorial School is to prepare hazzanim to be dedicated members of the Jewish clergy. While seeking the holy and mystical in contemporary human existence through prayer, psalm, and melody, the hazzan aims to inspire Jews to feel closer to God and the Jewish tradition.
— Hazzan Henry R. Rosenblum, Michael W. Greene Dean
H. L. Miller Cantorial School and College of Jewish Music
The Jewish Theological Seminary
Listen and View:
Watch the H. L. Miller Cantorial School video.
Listen to our choir singing Veye'etayu, one of the great classics from the Rosh Hashanah service as composed by the great nineteenth-century composer and choir director, Louis Lewandowski.
Enjoy our students singing a variety of Jewish songs:
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