100 Voices: A Journey Home

Whether it is to rediscover one's roots, honor one's parents, or visit one's ancestral home, or the birthplace of cantorial music, 72 opera trained cantors of Polish heritage from all over the world reunite in this remarkable historic trip to Poland in 2009 and revive the cantorial tradition sixty some years after its obliteration by the Nazi holocaust.

Joined by local choruses, the cantors performed to sold out audiences at the Krakow Philharmonic Hall, and at the Warsaw Opera House, the largest theater of its kind in Europe. Moving was the very first Jewish service conducted at the Auschwitz and at the Birkenau concentration camps.

Arising from a project initiated by Cantor Nate Lam of Steven S. Wise Temple in Los Angeles, the documentary features some of the world's most celebrated cantors. Cantor Alberto Mizrahi also known as the 'Jewish Pavarotti', Cantors Ivor and Joel Lichterman praying at Noygck Synagogue, the only Synagogue in Poland that was not destroyed in WWII and where their father was the synagogue's last Cantor, as well as Cantor Simon Spiro whose father was a famous member of the Yiddish theater and whose hilarious mime sketch is performed in the documentary by Simon. Among the female Cantors featured are Arianne Brown and Faith Steinsnyder.

Intrigued by the integrated similarities between the Polish and Jewish cultures, is Janusz Makuch, a non-Jew and founder of the Jewish Cultural Festival in Krakow 20 years ago. The festival attracts 25,000 people a year who come to listen to the ancient Jewish Polish music tradition.

Accompanying the cantors was Oscar nominated and Emmy and Grammy winning composer, Charles Fox (Killing Me Softly), who made the emotional trip to his father’s village. Fox's original 'Lament and Prayer' composition is performed at the end of the documentary and includes the prayer of forgiveness that Polish-born Pope John Paul II placed at Jerusalem 's Western Wall in the year 2000.

In this inspirational documentary, directors Matthew Asner & Danny Gold maintain an original feel to the story by blending amazing archival footage collected from the US Memorial Holocaust Museum and The National Center for Jewish Film at Brandeis University. Included are early twentieth’s century cantorial golden age era music and Yiddish theater footage.

100 Voices: A Journey Home, states Cantor Lam, is “about having a connection to the past through music.”