Geller grandaughter to sing at Shaarie Torah

By JEWISH REVIEW

article created on: 2010-02-25T00:00:00

Julie Geller said that as a child she “showed no musical promise, no voice. I was bad at piano and flute.”

On March 4, the Denver native and granddaughter of the late Rabbi Yonah Geller of Portland will accompany herself at the piano and on the guitar at Congregation Shaarie Torah, the congregation her grandfather led for 40 years.

Today, Geller is an independent singer-songwriter with three CDs to her credit and another nearing completion.

Before she graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music, she was up the street in Boston at Harvard University where she graduated in visual and environmental studies.

It was sometime before Boston that someone showed her a chord on the piano and, in so doing opened a door in her life.

“It made sense to me, how songs work,” she said of her epiphany. “I taught myself to play and started writing songs after that.”

The daughter of a rabbi—the latest in a long line of rabbis in her family—it is not surprising that Jewish motifs color her first three albums and none more so than her third release, “Step Into Shabbat.”

“Geller’s gentle individualization encourages the listeners to find their own ways into Shabbat,” said Mimi DuPree, writing for InterfaithFamily.com.

Geller’s March 4 performance at Shaarie Torah is set for 7 p.m. Tickets are $5.

Learn more about Geller and sample her recordings at her Web site, juliegeller.com.