Spring Shabbat with Elana Arian, Coleen Dieker, and Happie Hoffman

Elana Arian, Coleen Dieker, and Happie Hoffman join Rabbi Micah Greenstein for a music-filled Shabbat.

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Described as, “Soul. Light. Energy. Grace. Sparks of the Divine,” Elana Arian is one of the leading voices in contemporary Jewish music. A composer, multi-instrumentalist, prayer leader, and recording artist, Elana inspires communities across the country with her soulful songwriting and spirit. Elana’s work has been included in many Transcontinental Music publications, including both the popular Ruach and Shabbat Anthology series, and her compositions are sung in synagogues, summer camps, and spiritual communities from London to Cape Town, from Australia to New Orleans, and everywhere in between. Elana has released three albums of original music and is thrilled to be working on her fourth, entitled The Other Side of Fear. Elana has served on the faculty of both Hava Nashira in Oconomowoc, WI and Shirei Chagiga in London. In addition to touring nationally as an Artist in Residence in communities across the country, Elana is proud to teach at and the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, working as an Adjunct Instructor and Teaching Artist in the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music. She has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Tanglewood, and perhaps most memorably, five separate appearances at the (Obama) White House.

Coleen Dieker, a Kansas City, MO native, performs on a wide variety of instruments: piano, guitar, flute, ukulele and especially the violin. She is also an accomplished composer and arranger, a gift she has employed in various roles, including as a music director in the non-secular world. She attended Boston’s Berklee College of Music for two years, an experience that inspired her to pursue music as a passion and a profession but bound to no single genre or style. She has since flourished as a go-to artist in Kansas City and beyond. Her current projects include Ensemble Iberica, which explores the traditional music of Spain and Portugal, and Flannigan’s Right Hook, a high-energy country/bluegrass/Celtic rock band. She also writes, records and tours with acclaimed Jewish singer/songwriter Rabbi Josh Warshawsky.