Vancouver Jewish Folk Choir

12/28/2025

Job posting alert! The Alto Section Leader & Soloist is one of four section leaders (SATB) who, along with the conductor and piano accompanist, supports and anchors the VJFC in rehearsals and performances throughout the choir season. Section leaders play an important role in improving the singing experience for amateur choir members. As pillars of our community choir, section leaders share their talents, knowledge, and love of choral singing with other members and act as mentors by helping others learn the music and develop their skills.

The successful candidate will be a community-oriented person who enjoys singing with other people in a choir setting and is committed to creating a welcoming and inclusive space for members and audiences. The position starts immediately and runs until mid-June, with the possibility of extension for the next season.

Apply at https://www.peretz-centre.org/post/job-posting-alto-section-leader-soloist-vancouver-jewish-folk-choir-2025

The Vancouver Jewish Folk Choir (est. 1980) is hiring a new Alto Section Leader & Soloist to support and anchor our friendly community choir's rehearsals and performances throughout the season (Sep-Jun)!

✴️ Position starts immediately at $30/hour (open until filled)
✴️ Weekly rehearsals on Tuesday evenings from 7:30-9pm
✴️ Share your talents, knowledge, and love of choral singing with other members
✴️ Act as a mentor by helping others learn the music and develop their skills
✴️ Create a welcoming and inclusive space for members and audiences

We encourage applicants from all cultural backgrounds, gender identities, sexual orientations, and abilities.

Read the full job posting at our website site and apply: https://www.peretz-centre.org/post/job-posting-alto-section-leader-soloist-vancouver-jewish-folk-choir-2025

***ABOUT VJFC***

The Vancouver Jewish Folk Choir is an amateur, non-audition choir that learns and performs a repertoire ranging from traditional Jewish folk songs to more sophisticated cantatas and other longer works (mid-level).

Founded at the Peretz Institute (now the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture) in 1980 by Searle Friedman, we are committed to three core missions:
✴️ Providing an open, welcoming place to sing for all levels of ability;
✴️ Maintaining Yiddish and other Jewish languages;
✴️ Contributing to a progressive vision of what Jewish culture can be.

With members from different cultural and faith backgrounds from their 20s to 80s, and a long history of overlapping with the LGBTQ+ community and many q***r and trans members, the VJFC creates a welcoming, safe, and supportive multi-cultural space where people of all abilities and backgrounds can be in community, learn about Jewish music and languages, and build bridges with other folk music traditions.

We stand with the long revolutionary Yiddish history of advocating for peace. Learn more here: https://www.peretz-centre.org/vancouver-jewish-folk-choir

06/12/2025

Our spring concert is only a few days away!!

Doyres Zingen / Generations Sing! VJFC celebrates the Peretz Centre's 80th anniversary in Yiddish and Ladino

03/26/2025

Wondering what you need to join the VJFC? Here's a starter kit!

03/19/2025

Some background information on one of the pieces we'll be performing on April 6th at the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture Community Seder:

Mayn Rue-Plats (“My resting place”) is a Yiddish song by Morris Rosenfeld, a labour poet of the early twentieth century. The song was dedicated to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire victims (1911) and has remained popular in labour and socialist settings since then. Its lyrics contrast the beauty of the natural world with the oppressive injustices of early twentieth century sweatshops. This choral arrangement was made by the Searle Friedman, the founder and director of the Jewish Folk Choir until 1990; the 40th anniversary museum exhibit notes that it has remained one of his most popular arrangements.

“Seek me not where myrtles grow green,
you’ll not find me there, my prize;
Where lives wither at machines,
there is my resting place.
Seek me not where birds sing,
you’ll not find me there, my prize;
I am a slave, where chains clang,
there is my resting place.”
(translation Chana Mlotek)

03/12/2025

Check out some members of the VJFC providing musical accompaniment in 's Purimshpiel at the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture tomorrow evening!! March 13th, 6-9pm. More details below!

Gliklekh in Goles is delighted to be partnering with the Peretz Centre to co-produce a Purim shpiel like you've never experienced. Satire! Solidarity! Jew-cy q***r critique and so much more...

03/05/2025

Catch the VJFC performing at the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture's Community Seder on April 6th! You'll hear some of the most beloved classics in our repertoire, as well as a few newer ones.

Tickets available here for a range of prices, including "pay what you can":

Secular Humanist hagaddah, Holocaust memorial service, traditional Pesach meal (vegan option), Vancouver Jewish Folk Choir

09/15/2024

We are welcoming new members in all voice parts. Our rehearsals start Tuesday, Sept. 17th at 7:30pm, but we accept new members all through our season (Sept. - June). Affordable, inclusive, good vibes, minor keys to sing in. Come join a rehearsal and see what you think!

07/16/2024

A (one day belated!) birthday shout-out to the one and only David Millard, our beloved choir director! Thanks for your (sometimes very niche) humor, all your arrangements and compositions for the choir over the years, and dedication to the "quirky little family" that VJFC is!

05/11/2024

This week's post gives you some background on one of our pieces, most recently performed last month: "Mir Nemen Zikh Arum".

Mir Nemen Zikh Arum (We come and gather round) is a new song commissioned by the choir in 2021 and composed by Polina Shepherd, a UK-based singer, choral director and composer. Shepherd’s new setting of a poem by Soviet Yiddish poet Meir Haratz describes the human impulse to come together in moments of adversity. In the few years since, it has become one of our most popular and versatile songs, and we have sung it in a variety of contexts, from political fundraisers to Passover Seders.

The text reads:

“We who are conquered by the strongmen in command
We who are at odds with the leaders of the world
We the dissatisfied from everywhere
In our diversity, we all come together”
(translation Anna McClennen)

Find Paulina here on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/polinashepherd/

Thanks to Dan Carkner for the song description!