Ari Sharfstein

Hi everyone! For those of you who have not yet met me, my name is Ari and I graduated in 2022 with my master's in music education at CU Boulder! I teach music to middle and high schoolers in Aurora.

I joined the Nevei Kodesh team as the religious school music teacher a few years ago when I arrived to begin my degree program. Before making my way to Boulder, I studied music and philosophy at the University of Florida, where I led music for services at the Hillel House and worked as the music teacher at a local Hebrew school. After graduating, I moved back down to South Florida where I worked as an SAT tutor, but it was a job destined to be short lived. A few months after returning home, I got a job offer to be the musician in residence at Temple Israel in Cape Town, South Africa. I spent three wonderful months in Cape Town working as a songleader, music teacher, youth worker, and b'nei mitzvah tutor before returning to the United States, but my wanderlust wasn't satiated just yet. Luckily for me, a synagogue in Melbourne, Australia was looking for a music teacher and assistant to the cantor, and next thing I knew I was heading down undah'. I spent a full year working in Melbourne (or Melbin, as the locals say) before returning to the United States once more to continue my education here in Boulder. It's been a wild ride, and one that I'm glad has landed me here with this wonderful community.

I am excited to have expanded my role in musical service and prayer leadership for the entire Nevei Kodesh community. 

Sheldon Sands

With a BA from Naropa University in music, Sheldon is a multi-instrumental world music artist and a composer, arranger, performer, pianist, piano teacher and producer who has studied in the Middle East as well as in Boulder.  

Two of his CDs,  “Across Many Oceans“ and “Dead Sea Strolls” cross cultural borders and celebrate our planet’s human and ecological diversity through multiple ethnic and contemporary styles. In 2011 Sheldon released “Sand-Between-the-Toes” representing a lighter side of his musicality, combining his love of folk, blues and Americana traditions with his original settings to the endearing verse of A.A. Milne.

Along with Rabbi Tirzah Firestone and Lisa Antosofsky, he played keyboards, sang and recorded the CD “Ashreynu,” with 15 ecstatic, heartful Jewish chants for meditation and personal attunement.  With Rabbi Tirzah  and Eyal Rivlin, he recorded the CD "Shir Joy," a collection of Shabbat morning prayer songs.

Sheldon has brought many of the most talented musicians of the Middle East and other regions to Colorado audiences. He produces concerts for the Boulder JCC, the Boulder Jewish Festival stage and independently and has been active as a performer, pianist/keyboardist and accordion player with Marta Burton, Michael Delalla, The Yuval Ron Ensemble, Rachid Halihal and The Boulder Klezmer Consort. He also lectures about world music throughout the mountain states, helping audiences of all ages understand and appreciate the music of these fascinating lands and peoples.

Sheldon came to his first Jewish Renewal service in 1994, when the Jewish Renewal Community of Boulder (now CNK) was meeting at the Unitarian Fellowship. He says, "When I entered the room filled with kippas, Israeli line dancing and singing, I had a feeling there was something very alive happening that I hadn’t felt in the Reform movement of my youth. The Rabbi’s deep and insightful drash on the story of Jacob and Esau spoke right to my own G-D wrestling and left me in tears. What can I say? In due time I got involved with playing music for services, one of the great gifts of my life!”

For more information visit https://sheldonsands.com

Joe Lukasik

Joe Lukasik has served as a musician on the bimah and lay service leader at Nevei Kodesh for many years and since 2010, Joe has actively supported the elder community in Boulder County as a Para-Chaplain for Jewish Family Services. 

Joseph (Joe) was born into a musical family. By 13, he was a scholarship student at the Manhattan School of Music Pre-College Division studying bassoon, composition, and jazz. After a summer studying composition at the Tanglewood Institute, he went to the Eastman School of Music to study composition, bassoon and piano. He then did masters and doctoral work at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. In 1989, Joseph was chosen to be the founding director of music technology at the University of Colorado at Boulder where Joseph also taught composition, music theory and coached jazz combos. 

Joe’s recordings cross over many genres including his own compositions on the Albany and Starkland record labels, Jazz (Eric Deutsch and Fat Mama, Brooklyn Jazz Underground, Shane Endsley, Greg Caroll with Art Lande, Benevento/Russo Duo), and Inspirational with Eyal and Danya Rivlin. Joe has performed across the US from New York’s Carnegie Hall with the New York Youth Symphony and Knitting Factory as a Jazz performer, the Fox and Gothic Theaters in Colorado plus other venues across the country and has had performances of his music at the World Saxophone Congress in Italy and the Tolosa International Choral Competition in Spain. He has had commissions by various solo artists and ensembles including the Adirondack Wind and Metamusic Chamber Ensembles. Joe came to play the clarinet late in life (after 40!) when joining Nevei Kodesh and performs frequently as part of the Boulder Klezmer Consort, with Eyal Rivlin and IsraGroove, and as a Jazz and classical soloist. Joe was awarded the Barlow international prize for his Choral Competition Ho Hiyuwaye (A Voice I Send) performed by the Dale Warland Singers in Minneapolis. 

Photo by Sofia Dro

Ev Evnen

Music has always been a portal to something deeper for Ev (they/them). Since first leading Adon O’lam as a young child, they have found a special home in Jewish music. Ev understands song as a way to move us to higher spiritual intensity, a way to connect us to our ancestors, and as a way to be in community with each other. As a Shaliach Tzibbur, Ev strives to daven (pray) with kavanah (intention) and ruach (Spirit), bringing the kahal (community) along in their own spiritual journey. Ev has been trained by Rabbi Ariana Katz and Daniel Neiden and is a   ALEPH cantorial student. They are thrilled to be joining the Nevei community as one of our musical prayer and service leaders!