In the service of song

By Tamar Satov

Ask David Young what he’s doing this weekend and one thing is for sure — he will not be sleeping in. The 48-year-old Brampton, Ont., city auditor spends every Saturday morning leading prayer services at Beth Torah synagogue in Toronto as the congregation’s cantor. As for Sundays, he’s up just as early teaching singing out of his home starting at 8:30.

“My family wakes up to the sound of singing,” says Young, who has been involved with the vocal vocation most of his life.

Singing in his synagogue’s choir as a child, Young became its assistant conductor at 16, making him the youngest conductor in North America. It was then he gained his qualifications as a cantor — developing his voice, repertoire and understanding of the prayer services.

“I loved singing more than anything. I sang solos with the choir and my own cantor,” he says. Opportunity knocked in 1990, when he was approached by Shaar Shalom synagogue to do the occasional Sabbath service, which led to a part-time role as cantor twice a month.

In 1998 Young became the cantor at Beth Torah, where he leads services on Saturdays and Jewish holidays, officiates at weddings and funerals and tutors kids preparing for their Bar or Bat Mitzvah. He is proud of the number of young families who choose to attend his services, attracted in part by his singing and that of his 12-year-old son, Jakie, a professional singer who often joins him in duet or performs solos at the synagogue. “The service is warm, vibrant and family-oriented,” says Young. “It’s wonderful to see the satisfaction on people’s faces at the service.”

But Young hasn’t left his choir days behind — aside from conducting an adult and children’s choir at Beth Torah, he conducted a choir and produced a CD of holiday music at his employer, City of Brampton, last year. How does he find time for it all?

“I don’t watch any more TV,” he says. “You get used to it — when you have to do something, you do it.”