Cantor Marina Shemesh earned her Bachelor of Arts Degrees at the State Conservatory of St. Petersburg and Tel-Aviv Academy of Music, where she won The First Prize in The Academy Vocal Competition. She earned her Master of Sacred Music and Diploma of a Chazzan at the Jewish Theological seminary of America in New York City. In addition to being a soloist at the New Israeli Opera in Tel-Aviv, where she sang an impressive list of operatic roles, Mrs. Shemesh performed in Opera in Concert, Recitals and Oratorio with major Israeli and American orchestras. Mrs. Shemesh has received a number of impressive musical awards and prizes from vocal competitions in Montreal, Bilbao, Athens, and Tel-Aviv. She has been the recipient of a lengthy and varied list of scholarships, such as: America Israel Cultural Foundation, Israel Vocal Arts Institute Foundation (IVAI), Jewish Foundation for Education of Women, and others.

Cantor Shemesh served as a Rosh Tefilah and Hebrew Teacher at Camp Ramah in Canada, performed in the UJF Women’s League and Torah Fund Annual meetings, at the Cantors Assembly Convocation, CA Annual Conventions and at the presentation of the Anthology “Yiddish Literature in America”. She has featured in the JTS documentary “Faith First: Second Career Clergy.” Mrs. Shemesh was invited to participate in the Conference of Jewish Music in Russia where she made a presentation and performed in the concert. Her major performances also include the world premiere of “The Challenge of the Muse” by S. Adler at the International Conference of Jewish Music “Only in America” at Lincoln Center in New York City. Mrs. Shemesh was also chosen to perform at the Biannual United Synagogue Conventions in Dallas (2003) and in Boston (2005). Her recent performance was the solo part in the Handel’s “Israel in Egypt” with The Master Singers of Worcester.

Cantor Shemesh joined Beth Israel in August 2004 and made Worcester her home together with her husband David and their children Michael and Daniel.

To contact Cantor Shemesh, email her at cantor@bethisraelworc.org.