“B’Rosh Hashana” Shlomo Katz Prepares For Yomim Noroim

It’s no secret that Shlomo Katz grew up in a musical house. His father, R’ Avshalom Katz, served as a Baal Tefillah for over 40 years, and during his childhood Shlomo would stand by his father’s side and sing from the Bima. His father would take the inspiring pieces of Yossele Rosenblatt and R’ Shlomo Carlebach and others, and put them together in an incredible way for the words of the Machzor.

Already by age 23 Shlomo was davening for the Amud during the Yomim Noraim, and this year he will lead his congregation of Shirat Shlomo in Efrat. In anticipation of the upcoming Yomim Noraim Shlomo is releasing the first take from his upcoming new album. This song is called B’Rosh Hashana, the words for which are taken from the Tefillah of Unesaneh Tokef, and it was composed at the beginning of one of his weekly Shiurim in Yerushalayim and Efrat. “This happened during Elul two years ago, literally right before we were sitting down to learn about the Teshuva of chodesh Elul, and this niggun came down as a gift.”

Shlomo is hard at work on the new album lately, and it is the most original album that he has released until now. Not only are all of the compositions original and his own, but also some of the songs on the album are written in Hebrew that he wrote himself. “This was something that I strongly refrained from until now, but this past summer was a time of necessity. I was on my way to a number of concerts in South Africa with a lot of time on the airplane. I opened up my laptop, and said to myself, ‘let’s see what happens.’ Within a few hours, I was facing the lyrics to a number of the niggunim that are on the album.”

The production of the song and the whole album was overseen by the talented pair Nadav Bachar and Oren Tzur, who also made the arrangements and gave the songs an incredible flavor and feeling. B’Rosh Hashana, the new and emotional song joins the many other hits of Shlomo’s: Niggun Nevo, Vehakohanim, Kevodo, Shema Koleinu, Shabbos Koidesh, and others, which are all already stored with honor in the chest of Jewish songs.

Click PLAY below to hear the song