Decades in the Making – Chabad Musician Reveals Unreleased Album of Chabad Niggunim
by CrownHeights.info
An album of Chabad niggunim recorded years ago by Chabad Lubavitch musician Gershon Beck is finally set for release, bringing to the public a project long held close to his heart.
The recordings center around niggunim associated with Yud-Alef Nissan, the Rebbe’s birthday, and were originally worked on in 2005. Beck collaborated on the project with Yisroel Lutnick, originally from Long Island and now living in Yerushalayim. Beck provided Lutnick, a composer and known musician, with the sheet music based on musical notations from the sefer compiled by the late Eli Lipskier, a”h.
In an interview with CrownHeights.info, Beck shared that his musical connection with Lipskier went back decades, when as a bochur in Yeshivas Tiferes Bachurim in Morristown in 1979, he frequently played clarinet and saxophone at weddings together with Lipskier and other Morristown students. “I’ve played with Eli a”h for many years,” Beck wrote, describing how those early experiences helped draw him deeply into the world of Chabad niggunim.
Becks connection to Negunim, though, began even earlier.
When Rabbi Levertov, the Shliach of the Rebbe to Phoenix, Arizona sent him to yeshiva in Morristown—around the time Beck and his family became frum— he was 19, and his mother, a”h, encouraged him to bring along his clarinet. It proved to be life-changing. Fellow bochurim would give him cassette tapes of Nichoach, and Beck would play the niggunim for them. “I got pulled into niggunim and never looked back,” he recalled.
Working with Lutnik, the album of Yud Aleph Nian Negunim was fully produced, yet Beck never released it at the time. He had hoped to publish it as a CD—when CDs were still the standard—either for sale or to distribute at family simchos, complete with a jacket explaining the meaning and background of the niggunim. For various reasons, the project remained on the shelf.
That changed recently, when a friend, Yoni Ehrlich, heard the recordings playing in Beck’s wife’s car and urged him to finally share them. Beck’s wife, Naomi, echoed the sentiment, telling him it was time to give the music out. Beck agreed.
The album also left a deep impression on his collaborator, Yisroel Lutnik. After working together on the niggunim, Lutnick told Beck that the experience had inspired him to consider becoming more connected with Chabad. “He must have liked the ruach of these niggunim,” Beck explained.
Today, the Beck family lives in Oak Park, Michigan, and the release of the album comes with special tefillos. Beck asked the public to daven for a refuah sheleimah for Naomi bas Rifka, noting her many zechusim, including regularly arranging for yeshiva bochurim and musicians to bring joy to people in nursing homes and other facilities.
After years in waiting, the melodies—shaped by devotion, memory, and Chabad spirit—are finally ready to be shared, offering listeners a glimpse into a musical journey that spans a lifetime.
