Introducing Ruti 

Ruti Worrall is a musician, pianist and choir director originally from Israel. A graduate of the Israel Academy of Music in Tel Aviv, she came to Manchester over forty years ago and has lived in the UK ever since. She has been the director of the Menorah Synagogue Choir in South Manchester for the last nineteen years. 

"I came to Manchester because my husband was the principal cellist of the Hallé orchestra in Manchester... Since coming to England, I work mostly within the Jewish community, doing music within the Jewish community." 

Ruti's Musical Life Story 

Born into a musical family, Ruti began learning recorder at age eight and piano at age nine, the latter being a passion that has remained with her throughout her life. Growing up, Ruti and her two sisters all learnt from a young age and went on to become successful established musicians- as has Ruti's daughter. 

"My mother just had this dream- so we were three sisters, so the three of us were learning instruments. I was doing the piano, my twin sister was doing cello, and the older sister was doing violin. The [eldest sister] was the head of the conservatory music school, and my twin sister... She was a cellist in the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra. And our daughter is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music in London... It's a funny thing, but I always promised myself I would never marry a musician, and I did not want my children to be a musician. So I did very well there!" 

Ruti began directing choirs in Israel, shortly after graduating from the Academy of Music. Although choral directing now holds much significance in her life, at the beginning of her career, this was not necessarily a path that she chose for herself: 

"My passion if you like, was piano, I never intended to go into choirs and things. But in Israel, when you are around 18 you have to go to the army, and mine was delayed a bit in order to finish at the academy, and they sent to me to schools to teach music. So it was completely not my choice, and very military-well when I say military, difficult schools. And that's how it started, and I was quite determined not to conduct choirs, but that's what I've been doing for most of my life. So there you go!" 

Directing the Menorah Choir 

Now in Manchester, Ruti's involvement with the Menorah Choir initially began in a temporary capacity in order to support the members of the Menorah Synagogue. Nineteen years later, however, Ruti's impact on the choir and its impact on her has been profound: 

"I wasn't looking for [a choral position] So they, they came looking for me nineteen years ago, the Rabbi, he came looking for me, and to be honest, I was never a synagogue person, and going to sing, to do choirs in synagogue didn't appeal to me, but he was in trouble, it was three months before High Holidays, could I help him? So I agreed for three months. And then every year it was, "Okay. I'll do it for this year" [laughs], and "Okay, I'll do it for this year," and it's 19 years. So it almost came to me by chance rather than me looking for it, I wasn't looking for that, but they've become a very important part of my life." 

A large proportion of the choir's musical output is for Synagogue services, with the musical settings taking influence from many different sources. These include many pieces that Ruti has composed or arranged: 

"The music is taken from the text of services, but there's all kinds of tunes with it- are made some tunes coming from Germany in the 18th century. Some I wrote in the recent 10 years or so, some moving around, you know how it is. So it's a mixture, and we try to bring in a lot of Oriental music as well, so Yemenite and, and that sort of thing." 

In addition to the choir's religious role, they do at times perform in contexts removed from religious services, including an annual multi-faith concert and of choral tours abroad: 

"Most of the year, it's service music. But once a year, we do this concert, and we love to sing completely different things for that. One of our big ones is the rhythm of life, but we're doing plenty other popular songs, Beatles songs and all that. But the rest of the year is service music." 

"Just before the pandemic, the choir did a tour to Israel, which was extremely successful. And yeah, people love the songs that are not necessarily from the service, but funnily enough, one of the crazy songs that we did was a little children's song from Israel about rain, which I suddenly decided one day to arrange for them- it's a crazy and very difficult arrangement. And that brings the house down everywhere we go- England, Israel, I don't know why [laughs]. It's just great, but very difficult for the choir." 

In her time directing the choir, Ruti has amassed both a role in the choir that will be difficult to replace, and also a wealth of music and recordings as an online resource that other choirs and synagogues are also able to benefit from: 

"I'm 76 [laughs], so I don't know how many more years I'll be doing [the choir]. And it's very difficult to see continuation in the form of somebody coming in, in my place, because I combine a very professional education, with being Jewish, and particularly with being Israeli and being very well- doing very well with Hebrew. So probably will be difficult- and a composer as well, so it will be difficult for them to find somebody combining all those, but I will admit, before I came, there were all sorts, including somebody who was a priest, would you believe [laughs] in it is as well, so they will probably have to change. I left them a well of recordings and music. In fact, it's very strange, because about, I'd say, three years ago, one of the congregation came to me and asked, said that she had to go to America for the High Holidays and wouldn't hear the choir, would they consider putting some songs on the website? So we'd already produced two CDs, it's a very special choir that we have, a very good one. So we produced two CD and put those immediately on the website, and strangely enough, not ever thinking, what was going to happen this last year, every rehearsal, I recorded two songs. So we've got 60, 70 songs now on the website, so for all our zoom services, they play recorded music, and what we haven't recorded, we either did a lockdown recording, or we sing live the best we can. So I think for anybody coming after, there will be an easy way through the music that's already there. And, and the rest of it, who knows... In the last holiday, some other synagogues used our recorded music as well, because suddenly, it's own silent... I don't know what our services would be like without that music." 

Multi-faith Music-Making 

A significant annual event in the choir's calendar is the multi-faith concert Ruti organises; this event brings together choirs across Manchester form a variety of religious, national and ethnic backgrounds. 2020 has presented a number of difficulties for the choir, but Ruti and the concert's participants have found a way to continue showcasing their music virtually: 

"We are now organising an enormous concert- virtual concert on the 30th of January. We do one once a year before the pandemic at our synagogue, and we invite choirs from all denominations- we've had Ukraine choirs, we've had Pakistani choirs, we've had Indians, Christians, we've even had the choir of St. Martin in-the-fields come to sing for us. And this year, we can't do it properly, so we're doing it virtually. And quite a few of the choirs that sang with us in the past are donating songs for the concert so it's gonna be something special." 

This concert is deeply important to both the menorah choir and the other choirs involved, and Ruti wonders if integrated community music-making can serve a role in healing divisions between different communities: 

"I've been doing this- call it choir festival- every year for the last seven years. And, and it's very special, and we made friends for life amongst people we never would have met otherwise. Particularly the Pakistani ones, which you think historically are great enemies of the Jews, but we're such good friends with them. So much so that I was wandering around the Christmas markets about two years ago, and suddenly I saw the daughter of the leader of that group, gorgeous girl who's now a lawyer, and she.. She thought I wouldn't recognise her, and the moment I saw her, I ran and hugged her, and it was such a lovely feeling. And the more people do that sort of thing, maybe the more friendly the world will become and then we'll be less at each other's throats." 

Sing You Away (see video) 

The pandemic, perhaps unsurprisingly, has been very difficult for both the continuation of services and in-person music-making within the Jewish community. Ruti and the Menorah choir have been able to move their singing online, but other denominations of the Jewish community have been significantly impacted. Within the Menorah Choir's Adaptations, there have been definite challenges for new members in the choir. 

"So the Orthodox have not been able to keep music services going, because they're not supposed to use the television and whatever on the Holy Days, they're doing it in the week. But for us, it was well, from what everybody says to me, it makes the services- without the music, I don't think as many people would, would join into the session. So it's really very special." 

"Some new members found [the transition to online singing] very hard. And some of them have stopped coming, and said they will get back when we are in person, because- I don't know if you're musically familiar with zoom- but you cannot sing together. So my husband and I can sing in two parts instead of the choir, but we're still rehearsing every week, I teach them things, I work with them, we do a lot of solos, but we can only sing solos, which for new members is in bit stressful... When you when you sit in a group and learn new songs, or sing the songs that they know, you can lean on somebody and learn it in a natural way. But this is not natural, what's happening now, it's been difficult." 

Earlier this year during lockdown, Ruti wrote and arranged a song called "Sing You Away", about wishing COVID and its effects away so that the choir and the community could be together again. Ruti recorded the piano accompaniment, each member of the choir recorded their own voice parts, and Ruti's husband Peter edited their recordings together and produced the video. 

"I wrote [the choir] a song called 'Sing You Away', about the virus. We recorded that in lockdown... It became a very important song, because we are still hoping to sing it away."