Musicians for Hire
Music enhances the service. We encourage you to include a variety of songs, to have a musician providing instrumental support, and to bring additional music. The congregants below are often available to enhance your service with music. Please be sure to contact one of them early in your planning. Feel free to ask or include others as well.
Lisa Sharp’s love for our B’nei Mitzvah students and their families is clear in all she does. She has played piano for services and taught Torah chanting at Beth Shalom since 2005. She knows all service music and can incorporate contemporary music if provided enough time. Lisa is happy to help guide a family’s choices for music throughout the service, including silent meditation music. The fee is $150, which includes meeting with the family at the temple to review and rehearse music prior to the service, as well as playing on the day of the service. For more information, please contact her at lisa@singalongwithlisa.com or (919) 345-2334.
Mike Stevens is a retired Reform rabbi, with over 40 years in the congregational rabbinate. As a musician, Mike holds an M.A. in Music Composition; his compositions include more than three dozen Jewish liturgical songs, and two marches and other music for concert band and orchestra. Since joining Beth Shalom in 2017, Mike has played piano once a month for our Shabbat services, in addition to accompanying an elementary school chorus and playing show tunes and popular songs for fundraising events. Mike will be happy to help you choose music and to play piano for your Simcha, including songs while the congregation is entering and leaving the sanctuary. Mike’s honorarium is $100. You can write to Mike at michael.stevens@prodigy.net, or call (919) 586-7950.