In Chant, a middle-aged working mother with avocational music ability and a simmering need for renewed purpose embarks on an amateur sleuth's quest for the roots of Jewish music. From winter into spring, Meredith, anoptimistic Midwesterner, ventures from behind the computer in her cozy Minnesota basement to Yiddish archives in New York City to archeological ruins in Jerusalem to find the source of the music she loves.She travels through history, from Egypt to Israel to Spain to Romania to the Caucasus Mountains, to experience the melodic and tectonic forces that have shaped Jewish music. And...