Teaneck—Rebecca Teplow, 49, wife and mother of three children, is a singer, composer, performer, and former student of internationally renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman, but not someone who one might think would keep her light under a rug. Light seems to be a motif for her as she speaks of her feelings for the art of performance and composition and which she repeats often to be a God-given gift.
Teplow said she first came to music when she was around seven or eight. “I was always drawn to music.” She said it wasn’t so much what she learned at Yeshiva of Flatbush, but the connection coming from growing up and constantly hearing Jewish melodies at the Shabbos table. “My father loved music,” resulting in the opportunity for Teplow and her siblings to all learn piano at home. Music and the piano were her escape, yet she falters in explaining from what she needed to escape. “I think in most artists there is that feeling to escape a little bit. It was where I was able to express myself.”
Teplow said growing up Orthodox and going to yeshiva “really does not give kids a big chance to become a disciplined musician. You get home at 5:30, you have hours of homework, and it’s impossible to spend the time that most classically trained musicians spend at an instrument.” She says that she sees that today with her own piano and voice students. “I see that the kids’ lives are so full and their hours are so limited that they don’t have any time to dedicate to their instrument.”
That search for a means of self-expression was what eventually drew Teplow to the violin. Accepted into the High School of the Performing Arts to study piano, she had to learn a second instrument and was drawn to the violin because of its power to convey shades and textures of emotion. “I think it’s the most demonstrative of emotion. It cries like no other instrument.”
However even then, Teplow found that her life had limitations. The film Fame was being shot at the High School of Performing Arts. She was excited; as were all her friends who were destined to be in the movie. But, it was to be filmed on Shabbos and she could not reconcile her feelings of being left out.
As she developed her studies, she continued to feel separate from the music world as student performances were given on Friday nights and Saturdays. “It definitely was challenging.” However this did not stop Teplow from pursuing her dreams and, as an advanced student, she found herself being taught by Itzhak Perlman.
“The lesson I learned from studying with Itzhak Perlman was the importance of singing the violin, not just playing it. The desire to sing became an important motive in my mind and in my heart in the years that followed, especially as I realized that the human voice is the most original.”
But whereas previously she felt a bit alienated as a musician for being an observant Jew, the concept of singing now further added to her trepidation. “As a woman and as an Orthodox Jew, I’m a little bit of an outsider in my own world.” Teplow said of herself, “I have been hiding from an audience my entire life. I am not sure if this is because I have a strong case of performance anxiety, or that the issue of kol b’isha erva has presented a strong obstacle. Or is it both? Has my performance anxiety been profoundly influenced by my fear that I am not being a ‘good girl’ when I sing in public?”
For years she only sang Shabbat zemirot in an undertone. “It cannot be wrong for me to use my God-given talent to enable people to hear the inner voice of their soul’s yearning for spiritual greatness.”
Teplow then spoke of singer Neshama Carlebach, daughter of the late Sholmo Carlebach. “She said she’s making alyiah to the Reform movement because she’s had such a hard time being accepted in the Orthodox community.” Teplow is one of only a few Orthodox female vocalists, she said of herself, who wants to perform publicly to audiences of women and men. “I want to do this. I want to set an example for future generations. I want to be an example to my daughter whose school does not allow women to sing in front of men, only in front of women.”
Teplow will be giving a concert of her compositions on Sunday, March 9 at 8 p.m. at Kaplen JCC on the Palisades in Tenafly, NJ/ Tickets are $15 for JCC members and $20 for nonmembers and can be purchased at rebeccateplow.com.
Proceeds will be donated to JOFA (Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance)
By Anne Phyllis Pinzow
