Geoffrey Shisler is a man of many parts. Rabbi, Cantor, Educator, Composer, and Magician.

Rabbi Shisler is currently the Rabbi of the New West End Synagogue in London, UK, where he has been since 2000. This is one of the most beautiful synagogues in the world, and has recently become a National Monument, having been awarded Grade I listing by English Heritage. You are invited to visit its website. Prior to that he was Rabbi to the Bournemouth Hebrew Congregation, on the south coast of England, for seven years, and before that he served the Kenton Synagogue as Chazan/Minister for twenty years.

Rabbi Shisler commenced his career as Cantor of the famous New Synagogue, Egerton Road, Stamford Hill N.16 where among his predecessors were the illustrious Jacob Goldstein and Ephrayim Rosenberg.

As Cantor, Geoffrey Shisler has conducted services throughout the Metropolis. The Cantors' Assembly of Montreal is in the process of producing a book of his compositions, and it is hoped that it will be available before the end of this year. Watch this site for details.

Recently he has published 'T'nu Kavod LaTorah' ('Give honour to the Torah'), a handbook containg numerous prayers relating to being called to the Torah. You can find details of this here.

Having qualified as a young man as a state teacher, Rabbi Shisler has been a passionate educator throughout his career. He has taught Jewish Studies at all levels and for some eleven years he taught Cantorial music and Nusach Hatefillah (traditional prayer modes) at Jews' College, London. He has also trained many people privately.

He is an inspector for Pikuach, an organisation that inspects the Jewish education in Jewish Schools, and also served a judge for the National Teaching awards for a number of years.

Geoffrey Shisler is also a member of The Magic Circle. The only Rabbi in the society!

The London launch of Shiru Lo Shir Chadash took place at the New West End Synagogue on Tuesday July 7th, in front of an audience of some 275 people.

It was a splendid evening in which various Chazanim sang pieces from the book accompanied by the distinguished accompanist Chazan Daniel Gildar.

The evening was enhanced by a group of boys from Sinai School, in Kenton, who sang two of the school assemly pieces that I composed many years ago to be sung at that school, where my children were pupils.

The Cantorial Singer, one of London's leading Jewish Male Voice Choirs also accompanied Chazanim in three of the pieces, arranged by Stephen Glass.

The participants, to all of whom I offer my sincerest appreciation were
Cantor Moshe Shulhof, Cantor Rabbi Lionel Rosenfeld, Cantor Rabbi David Katanka, Cantor Moshe Haschell, Cantor Robert Brody, and Cantor Steve Robins. I also took the opportunity to sing a piece mysef that is not in the book, Birkat Hachodesh, because I wanted to show that I'm still working! Hopefully it will appear in Book 2!

By way of contrast, one of the pieces was played on the clarinet by Hirsh Cashdan

Lionel Rosenfeld was an outstanding compere for the evening and held the proceedings together in his inimitable way.

A special guest was Rev Reuben Turner, who also spoke.

It was a wonderful evening that ended with an amazing reception hosted by my dear friends Su and Harvey Kats, and Jaqcui and Stuart Katz, to whom I extend my heartfelt thanks.

Here are a few pictures from the evening.