JIVE is a groundbreaking music group celebrating the depth and diversity of Jewish musical traditions while bringing fresh perspectives to cultural storytelling. Co-founded by internationally acclaimed Grammy Award–winning countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, baritone and cantorial soloist of Congregation Sherith Israel Simon Barrad, and creative producer and pianist Ronny Michael Greenberg, JIVE presents performances spanning Yiddish and Sephardic song, opera, jazz, musical theater, contemporary works, and new commissions.
JIVE’s programs explore themes of Jewish holidays, Jewish history, and Jewish life, offering audiences an imaginative, nuanced, and deeply human interpretation of Jewish culture. Our work reaches Jewish and non-Jewish audiences alike, including families, young professionals, students, and seniors across the San Francisco Bay Area and an expanding national footprint. JIVE has presented performances in partnership with organizations including the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, Sonoma State University’s Green Music Center, and the Cincinnati Song Initiative in collaboration with the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center, among others.
IT’S NOW OR NEVER:
SONGS OF HOPE AND RESILIENCE
On November 4 and 5, JIVE presents It’s Now or Never: Songs of Hope and Resilience at Holocaust Museum LA’s new Goldrich Cultural Center, a special tribute concert honoring Holocaust survivor Renée Firestone. The program features the world premiere of A Room of Light, a newly commissioned song cycle by composer Michael Schachter with texts by Gene Scheer, inspired by Renée’s life and testimony. Countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, baritone Simon Barrad, and pianist and music director Ronny Michael Greenberg join a versatile chamber ensemble to trace her life from prewar Europe, through the Holocaust, to the new life she built in America. Drawing on music written during and around the Holocaust, including works by composers who were murdered at Auschwitz, the program brings together Yiddish song and cabaret, German Lieder, jazz, and American musical theatre through original arrangements created especially for this production, including a reimagining of It’s Now or Never near the beginning of the program. Through music and storytelling, this concert affirms music as a powerful vehicle for memory, testimony, and resilience.