Cantor Marina Shemesh

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 Price 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 orchestras, such as Rishon-le-Zion, Ashdod, Raanana, and Haifa Technion orchestras. Mrs. Shemesh has received a number of impressive musical awards and prizes from vocal competitions in Montreal, Bilbao, Athens, and Tel-Aviv. Cantor Shemesh also performs as a concert artist at different venues around the country and around the world. 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 in 2003. Mrs. Shemesh was also chosen to perform at the Biannual United Synagogue Conventions in Dallas (2003) and in Boston (2005). Her recent performances include Handel’s “Israel in Egypt” and “Judas Maccabeus” with The Master Singers of Worcester. Recently she performed at the Masorti Olami Tribute “Hear our voices” at Park Avenue Synagogue, NYC. She is especially proud to be one of the cantors who were invited to participate in September 2008 to celebrate the opening of the “Jewish Institute for Cantorial Arts” in Berlin, Europe’s first Cantorial school since Holocaust.

Cantor Shemesh has been with Congregation Beth Israel since 2004. She resides in Worcester with her husband David, who is a Jewish educator and her two sons Michael and Daniel. As part of her responsibilities at Beth Israel Cantor Shemesh leads the services, tutors Bar/Bat Mitzvah students, assigns and chants Torah and Megillot. She is also active in adult and youth education and in the synagogue programming. As clergy of the congregation she participates at all the pastoral and life cycle events of the congregants. She conducts the volunteer band and the High Holiday ensemble. Cantor Marina Shemesh is very excited about being a member of the fabulous staff and family of Congregation Beth Israel.


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