Robin Rombach, Post-Gazette Ronald Schneider, a horn player in the Pittsburgh Symphony, plays the shofar, a ram's horn used in the Jewish High Holidays.

By Andrew Druckenbrod, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

	Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival schedule "From Shabbat to the High Holidays." Nizan Leibovich, conductor; Shira Adler, soprano; Andres C?rdenes, violin; Aron Zelkowicz, cello; festival orchestra; Zohar Chamber Singers. Includes "Teruah," a new work by Judith Shatin. 8 p.m. Wednesday, Jewish Community Center, Katz Theater, Squirrel Hill. "A Tribute to Shlomo Carlebach." Neshama Carlebach and band. 7:30 p.m. June 4, Congregation Beth Shalom, Squirrel Hill. "Songs for the Seasons." Shira Adler and Katherine Soroka, sopranos, with members of the Pittsburgh Symphony. 8 p.m. June 6, Rodef Shalom Congregation's Levy Hall, Shadyside. Tickets: $18 general, $15 seniors, $12 students; www.pjmf.net, www.proartstickets.org or 412-394-3353. Shofar player Ronald Schneider plays the four distinctive shofar blasts used in the Jewish High Holidays: "Tekiah" -- a long blast. "Shevarim" -- three medium-length calls. "Teruah" -- rapid series of nine short blasts. "Tekiah Gedolah" -- a long, unbroken note. An excerpt from Judith Shatin's "Elijah's Chariot," for string quartet and a manipulated recording of a shofar. The Kronos Quartet performs.

Of the many instructions, commandments and mitzvahs (good deeds) of the Jewish faith, none may be easier to follow than the instruction of the shofar, or ram's horn.

Its playing during the High Holy Days services of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur is meant to give inner strength to worshippers and to appeal to God. However, as the 12th-century rabbi Maimonides wrote, shofar blasts also ask a congregation to become spiritually roused: "Awake, sleepers from your sleep! Arise, slumberers, from your slumber!"

Indeed, when the shofar is blown, you have little choice but to take notice. Worshippers, and even a few city walls, have had their foundations shaken for more than 5,000 years, making the shofar one of the oldest instruments still in active use.

"I think no other sound represents the soul of Judaism as the sound of a shofar," says Aron Zelkowicz, founder of the Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival. "It is not just a religious instrument; it was a call to war, an alert."

"It is really the ancestor of the [French] horn," says composer Judith Shatin, who has been fascinated by the legendary life of the shofar. "Elijah is supposed to blow the shofar at the point of announcing the coming of the Messiah, and there is the legend that the shofar was blown when the walls of Jericho came down. There is a lot of resonance of this instrument as an announcer of major events. I think that, combined with the primitive, primal quality of the sound, is interesting."

Interesting enough that Shatin has now twice brought it into the secular world through her compositions. There are some precedents for this, including Edward Elgar's "The Apostles." But Shatin's "Elijah's Chariot," commissioned and premiered by the Kronos Quartet, is certainly the most high-tech. The quartet viscerally mimics a shofar sample, which slowly unravels through electronic manipulation.

Now Shatin, a professor at the University of Virginia, has composed a work in which the shofar will be played live. The festival commissioned "Teruah," or "Shout of Joy," and it will be premiered on Wednesday.

The festival's theme this summer is "The Jewish Year in Melody." "It is about how the calendar unfolds, featuring music from the religious holidays, so one gains the appreciation of the richness of our celebrations," says Zelkowicz. "Even though the shofar is not being used in the traditional sense, it will be used in a piece inspired by Rosh Hashana."

"Teruah," scored for brass, timpani and shofar, holds a fanfare element. "I felt that the kind of celebratory nature of it would really be captured well by brass instruments," says Shatin. She also incorporates a Rosh Hashana melody written by her grandfather-in-law, Avraham Tzvi Kubowitzki.

It usually falls to brass performers to play the shofar. Ronald Schneider, a horn player in the Pittsburgh Symphony, has done so at Temple Emanuel of South Hills in Mt. Lebanon for several years now.

"The person who is the ba'al tokea [shofar player] is supposed to meet certain requirements -- it is like the ritual slaughterer, you don't just let anyone do it," he says, continuing with a wry smile. "But I did not have to be inspected. Rabbi [Mark Joel] Mahler actually had to talk me into it."

That's because the primitive nature of the instrument can be frustrating to those who have mastered its brassy descendant. "The more in shape I am for horn playing, the more difficult this is," he says. "You only have three notes, maybe for fun you will get a fourth or fifth out of it, but that's it." Shofars don't even have mouthpieces.

In High Holy Day services, there are four basic shofar calls:

Tekiah -- a long blast.

Shevarim -- three medium-length calls.

Teruah -- rapid series of nine short blasts.

Tekiah Gedolah -- a long, unbroken note.

Shatin incorporated these calls into her new piece and in "Elijah's Chariot" (also performed at the festival), and the rest of the work is derived from them. "I have used rhythms that come from the [calls]," Shatin says.

But there is a limit to what a composer can do with the shofar. In addition to the paucity of available notes, "There is only one way to play this, there is not a soft version," says Schneider. "There is not a lot of subtlety, too. It is in your face."

Complicating any performance or composition is that each individual shofar also varies slightly in pitch. It is, after all, literally taken off an animal's head. Schneider plays an impala horn; horns of rams, goats, sheep and gazelles also are commonly used for shofars.

"It does have a stink to it," he says. "My dogs used to hate it. You get used to it."

While Schneider says that anyone with a moderate, even high school background performing a brass instrument can manage the shofar, skill makes a difference.

"When I was composing 'Elijah's Chariot,' I had a lot of trouble finding someone who played the shofar well," says Shatin. Adds Zelkowicz, "When you have someone who really has the symphonic chops to put their lips behind it, it is amazing."