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During the nineteenth century, there was no formal system of training for cantors in America. Those who became cantors learned through an apprenticeship system. They studied with a mentor or from a senior synagogue cantor. Not until the twentieth century, following World War II, did the American Jewish community began to establish institutions of Jewish learning for cantors. These schools were all originally exclusively for men. Among those were the School of Sacred Music at the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion (now the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music, DFSSM at HUC-JIR, founded1948), the Cantors Institute and College of Liturgical Music of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (now the H. L. Miller Cantorial School and College of Jewish Music, founded 1952), and the Cantorial Training Institute at Yeshiva University (now the Philip and Sarah Belz School of Jewish Music, founded 1964). Along with these three schools for cantorial studies, three professional denominational cantorial associations were also formed: the Reform-based American Conference of Certified Cantors (now the American Conference of Cantors, ACC, 1952); the Conservative-based Cantors Assembly of America (CA, 1947); and the Orthodox-based Cantorial Council of America (CCA, 1960). Additionally, the Jewish Ministers Cantors Association of America and Canada (also known as the Chazzanim Farband), founded in 1897, continued to serve as a type of cantor’s union and support organization.

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The Women Cantors’ Network organization, now with a membership of over 300, provides support, continuing education opportunities, and a forum for discussion of practical issues pertaining to women in the cantorate. In addition to WCN’s annual study conferences, the organization has produced a regular newsletter since 1983 and began commissioning new musical composition in 1997. In 2019, WCN published a songbook of members’ compositions called Kol Isha: Songs and Settings of Prayers.

Along with cantorial associations, affiliated organizations support women in synagogue music. Founded in 1896 as both an educational and a service organization, the American Guild of Organists has a mixed constituency of liturgical musicians, men and women, Jews and non-Jews. In 1987, the ACC established the Guild of Temple Musicians, which represented accompanists, conductors, composers, music directors and soloists.

Women cantors have been part of an expanding role for cantors in America, as cantor-educators, in pastoral care, and as cantor-composers and singer-songwriters. Having attended Brandeis University and the New England Conservatory simultaneously, Sheila Cline (1941-2020) became the second woman ordained as a cantor at HUC-JIR in 1976. After years as a pulpit cantor, she took her career toward a pastoral role, becoming certified in Jewish education, gerontology, and pastoral counseling. She served many institutions as a chaplain, and her expertise expanded into community relations.

Among the most prominent of the cantor-composers is Benjie Ellen Schiller (b. 1958), who became the first full-time faculty member of the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music at HUC-JIR in New York in 1987, where she holds a named professorship of Liturgy, Worship and Ritual as well as serving as a professor of Cantorial Arts. Other cantors, such as Faith Steinsnyder (b. 1957), serve as role models to their fellow women cantors. Steinsnyder is the first woman to teach traditional hazzanut and cantorial repertoire at HUC-JIR, JTS, and the Academy for Jewish Religion. She is known widely for concertizing the classics of hazzanut. Deborah Katchko-Gray produced the first publication in which traditional hazzanut was made available in female-friendly vocal ranges with guitar chords.

The presence of cantors who are also singer-songwriters has increased exponentially in recent years. Along with changes in musical vocal range and timbre, women cantors have created new music celebrating life cycle events and written new liturgical texts important to women. Linda Hirshhorn (b. 1947), a singer-songwriter who sang as a teen in Zamir Chorale in New York and became leader of the ensemble Vocolot, was officially invested as a cantor and served congregations in California. Cantor/Rabbi Rachelle Nelson (b. 1956) is well known throughout the United States as a composer of Jewish music, as is Cantor Natalie Young (b. 1974), whose music can be found in numerous publications and has been performed widely at Jewish music festivals and conferences. Many, such as Rosalie Boxt (b. 1973), current Director of Worship at the URJ, marry contemporary Jewish music with community singing. Boxt is known for encouraging new compositions of Jewish worship music. In liberal movements, cantors today commonly combine song leading in worship with guitars, drums, and other instruments. Cantor Lisa Levine (b. 1960) combines cantorial arts with composition, drumming, and meditation practices. Many women cantors sing new Jewish music that blends with other American styles and genres; Beth Styles, for example, uses gospel, pop, and Jewish song blended in creative ways.

Today, there are more female cantors than male in liberal North American congregations. Some have served in some of the largest congregations in the country, such as Cantor Lori Corrsin (b. 1954), at Congregation Emanu-El in New York, and Cantor Roslyn Barak (b. 1950), who served at Temple Emanu-El in San Francisco until her retirement in 2015. In reflecting upon her chosen profession, Barbara Ostfeld, the first woman ordained as a cantor in the United States wrote, “Women cantors have altered the way in which prayer is offered, heard, and received.”