Eric Brady | The Roanoke Times

Amanda Winter (left) sings during worship Friday night at Temple Emanuel in Roanoke. Winter, 24, has been interning there as a part-time cantor for two years. She plans to travel to Israel in July to begin a year of training at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem.

Amanda Winter sings Friday at Temple Emanuel. "I don't think I'll ever really leave them," she said of the congregation.

The bright lights are drawing Amanda Winter and her considerable singing talent. Not to Broadway, mind you, but to a bigger, spiritual stage.

On July 7, Winter will board a Delta jet in Roanoke on the first leg of a scheduled 18-hour flight to Jerusalem to begin a year of training at Hebrew Union College as a professional cantor, or a singer who leads a Jewish congregation in song.

"This is a dream come true. Judaism is a big part of my life, and so is music," said Winter, 24, a 2002 alumna of Cave Spring High School, who graduated from the University of Tennessee in 2006 with a bachelor of arts in linguistics and minors in music and Spanish. She visited Israel on an educational tour as a teenager, but has never been to Jerusalem or seen the campus of Hebrew Union -- a school with Harvardesque status in the lucrative world of cantors.

Salaries for cantors start in the range of $80,000 to $90,000 a year in large synagogues and can reach $150,000 with experience, according to the American Conference of Cantors, a trade group based in Chicago.

Winter's home congregation, Temple Emanuel in Roanoke, where she has been interning as a paid part-time cantor for two years, won't be able to afford her. "We just aren't large enough to pay for a full-time cantor," said Rabbi Kathy Cohen. Thus the synagogue's music programs are led by talented congregants who are modestly compensated.

To attain certification as a cantor and land a job in a major market, Winter must successfully complete a year of training in Jerusalem, and then four more years at Hebrew Union's campus in Manhattan. "It's a big commitment. But I love singing, and leading the music. So I'm very excited."

On Friday Winter sang in her last regularly scheduled appearance at Temple Emanuel. Wearing a gray pants suit, she draped a traditional worship shawl, called a tallit, around her shoulders. Singing some melodies in Hebrew, others in English, Winter's lilting voice seemed to soothe the spirits of many of the 30 or so congregants.

"She not only sings beautifully, but she clearly loves the music, the words -- the meaning of the service," said Gloria Moses, a 15-year member of Temple Emanuel.

Moses foresees major success for Winter. Having attended large synagogues near Detroit and Hartford, Conn., she said, "Amanda is as good right now as the cantors there. She has a heartfelt way about her. Some of the old-time cantors don't exude the personal warmth that she has."

Gary Fifer, president of Beth Israel Synagogue, whose congregation jointly sponsors Roanoke's Jewish Community Religious School with Temple Emanuel, has heard Winter sing at bar mitzvahs and other events. "She has a beautiful singing voice, even before her formal training." And to have a member of Roanoke's Jewish community attend Hebrew Union College, where this year's music program class totals only about 30, is rare. Fifer said: "She has done us all proud."

Yet not every verse of Winter's musical resume is formal, or even religious. Perhaps her favorite singing practice time is in the car, while driving. "I sing along with songs on the radio and on my iPod." And those tunes are a far cry from the gentle songs at Temple Emanuel. In the car, Winter regularly accompanies the likes of Grammy-winning pop star Fiona Apple and Regina Spektor, who was born to a Russian Jewish family and is known for a musical style influenced partly by punk and hip-hop.

But in synagogues, cantors focus on the musical part of Jewish liturgy, which on Friday night amounted to about half of the service. At Temple Emanuel, the cantor has a lectern about 30 feet to the rabbi's right, and they took turns leading worship. There's a rhythm to the service as Cohen read prayers in an unemotional manner meant to focus the congregation's attention on the words -- and not inflections of her voice that might distract from individual interpretation.

Winter's task is virtually the opposite: to lead singing that's invested with strong feeling. She and Cohen kept varying the pace of the service, expertly changing gears. Their pattern commanded attention just to keep up as the liturgy moved swiftly to new pages of the congregants' liturgy books every two or three minutes.

Each time Cohen finished reading a section of liturgy, she directed the congregation to another page where they could sing along with Winter on the next song. Near the end of the service, Cohen asked everyone to sing from a music sheet handed out before the service. The song is a favorite of Winter's, said Cohen, that, "she has wanted you to learn."

Few of the worshippers seemed to know the words, but they intently followed the lyrics of "B'Yado," which means "Into Your Hands," on the handout:

"My soul I give to you,

my spirit in your care,

Draw me near -- I shall not fear,

hold me in your hand,

Draw me near."

It's a poignant last verse for Winter to lead before her distancing herself by more than 7,000 miles from Roanoke; a goodbye that says: I will be with you in spirit.

Cohen said that although Winter will be missed at Temple Emanuel, she's sure the aspiring cantor won't forget her roots. "I don't think we have heard her sing here for the last time."

Winter vowed she will, someday, perform as a guest cantor at Temple Emanuel, no matter where her career takes her. "This will always be home. I would never have had my dream come true without the people of Temple Emanuel. I don't think I'll ever really leave them."