גודל הטקסט
The name "Miami" is a historical relic: this well-known choir has been based in New York for decades. It was founded in Miami Beach by the composer Yerachmiel Begun, in 1977 according to Mishpacha and the JTA news agency. Wikipedia also mentions the year 1976. Earlier, while studying at a yeshiva in Toronto, Begun had founded a boys' choir and recorded three albums with it. Around 1980 he moved to Brooklyn, took the project with him and left the name behind.
The debut album "Victory at Entebbe" came out in 1977, and in 1979 "Miami Live" followed, with the hit "Baruch Hagever". Begun composed almost all the songs himself and worked with arrangers such as Yisroel Lamm and Moshe Laufer. The choir also raised soloists, and among its alumni was the singer Yaakov Shwekey, who according to Wikipedia was a member.
In the 1990s the performances became a brand in their own right. The "Miami Experience" series, concerts held every year around Passover between 1991 and 1995, reached its peak at the Nassau Coliseum, which drew about 15,000 spectators. Mishpacha stresses that this was exceptional: at a time when a Jewish concert usually featured several artists, here a single choir with all its groups filled the hall. On a world tour in 1987-1988 they reached Jerusalem, and in 2006 they performed at Heichal Yad Eliyahu in Tel Aviv before about 10,000 people.
The most sudden chapter came in 2022. Chananya Begun, the founder's son, suggested to his father at a Shabbat meal that they open a TikTok account that would make use of the archive of more than forty years. According to the JTA, a clip from 2008 featuring a performance of "Yerushalayim" went viral within a few weeks. Wikipedia notes 10.8 million views by early May of that year. Chananya Begun reported a surge in visits to the website and in sales, and a tripling of listens on Spotify. The new audience also included non-Jews, and commenters compared the choir to pop groups from Korea. The founder's son stressed that they had changed nothing about the choir's style to suit the wave.
This chapter teaches that old material in a choir's archive can find a new audience. In 2024 the album "One Voice" was released, and the choir continues to record under the name that Begun chose for it on another coast, almost fifty years ago.
Sources: English Wikipedia (Miami Boys Choir); Mishpacha; JTA
Image: Biblioteca de la Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias del Trabajo, Universidad de Sevilla, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.