Nationally known Jewish singer/songwriter Elana Arian will perform at Congregation Beth El in Sudbury on Jan. 25 in what some might call a concert, “but it’s much more like a communal singing experience rather than sitting and receiving,” she says.

Though she is from a deeply Jewish background (her father is a retired Reform rabbi and her mother teaches at Hebrew Union College’s cantorial school), Arian spent a decade writing and performing secular folk music up and down the East Coast after studying classical violin at Yale University. One of the people who came to hear her play early on was the late Debbie Friedman, a legend in the world of Jewish music and a friend of her mother’s.

“She suggested writing Jewish music, but I kind of resisted that for a long time because of wanting to differentiate myself from my family,” Arian said. But when her first daughter was born about 12 years ago and she was adjusting to life as a new mother, “I found myself spontaneously starting to write prayer music.”

Friedman, who is perhaps best known for her version of “Mi Shebeirach” (the prayer for healing), was an early pioneer of gender-sensitive language, adapting masculine-specific liturgy to feminine forms. Although Friedman died before Arian achieved success as a fellow queer Jewish musician, “in some profound ways she was a mentor to me — a constant voice encouraging me in this direction and supporting me in my work as a musician in general,” she says.

Arian has now come full circle — she is an instructor at the same institution as her mother, which was renamed the HUC Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music. Her compositions are sung in spiritual communities, summer camps, and synagogues around the world, and she just released her fourth album of original music, “The Other Side of Fear.” Among the many she’s inspired are Vera Broekhuysen, Beth El’s cantor.

“Elana’s music has been an incredible teacher and resource for me as a cantor. Every time I hear a song of hers, I learn more about how to help my congregation sing, joyfully, with me,” Broekhuysen says. “Her music and her presence are full of warmth, vivid energy, and deep kavannah [intention]. She has an extraordinary voice whose sound is itself an invitation into song with her. Elana’s songs lift up profound emotional Jewish truths and urge us, beautifully, to turn our own Jewish truths into loving action.”

A central part of Arian’s mission as a musician is tapping into the power of combining prayer and song in a group setting. “All early cultures and all peoples and faiths knew that the way to be connected to life is to sing with others,” she says. “There’s something really beautiful about creating art that’s communal art — songs that are designed for the express purpose of people singing them together. The more you do it, the more you know the community you’re in.”

“Elana Arian Shares Song & Story” will take place at Congregation Beth El in Sudbury on Saturday, Jan. 25, at 8 p.m. Tickets on a sliding scale are available here.

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