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Temple Beth El in Jersey City is located only a few blocks from U.S. Highway 1 and 9, but the featured composition during a string quartet concert at the synagogue last month brought the crowd to Interstate 80.

Simon Fink's "Pastorals" kicked off a performance by four members of Con Vivo, a collective of New York-area musicians who perform free concerts in Jersey City. The winner among 90 submissions in an international composition competition conducted by Con Vivo, "Pastorals" depicts four rural American scenes including daybreak on a dirt road through a cornfield by a power plant, a thunderstorm over I-80 in the plains, an old barn, and twilight at the All Saints Cemetery near the Carolina Coast.

The remainder of the concert on May 17, however, focused on music by Israeli composers in honor of Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day. Co-hosted by Beth El and the United Synagogue of Hoboken, the concert was also given in memory of Gilda Simon, a former USH member and lifelong musician who passed away at age 80 in February.

Amelia Hollander Ames, a Jersey City native who is also a member at USH, played the viola before a crowd of about 50 people at Beth El, with Israeli Guy Figer as well as Mazz Swift on the violin, and Carolyn Jeselsohn on the cello.

"I worked in Israel for three years, so it's exciting for me to bring some of these composers and their music here," Hollander Ames said.

The second composition in the concert, Jonathan Keren's "Hora," was an alternative spin on the traditional Jewish dance. Characterized by syncopation, when a variety of rhythms deviate from a regular pattern of beats, the piece was intended to be unpredictable and keep an audience on its toes.

"Just when things get built up, something else will come in and surprise you," Hollander Ames said of "Hora".

The next composition, "Programmusik," was more somber but ultimately had an uplifting message. Carmel Raz wrote the piece in memory of her father, who died of lung cancer at age 55.

"I channeled some of my feelings about his disease into the music," Raz said. "Writing it and hearing it has helped me work through what happened to me and to so many other people who lose loves ones."

After performing Felix Mendelssohn's Quartet Op. 12, the group ended with a set of Israeli folk songs including "Hayu Leilot," "Yerushalayim Shel Zahav," "Lech Lamidbar," and a more traditional version of the Hora.

Con Vivo is supported almost entirely by donations, and Gilda Simon was the organization's first sustaining sponsor. Simon played piano and clarinet and sang as a soprano, in addition to work as an interfaith chaplain. She lived in San Francisco and moved back to Hudson County later in life, when she had a brief but meaningful relationship with Con Vivo.

"She had just been exposed to their music last fall and loved it," Simon's daughter, Rebecca Teichman, said. "She was at the point in her life where if she loved something, she donated to it."

"[My mother] would have been very moved by this concert," Teichman, a member of USH, added. "Even if she wouldn't have known the words, she would have hummed along in her soprano."

The crowd at Beth El literally sang along near the end of the performance, during "Yerushalayim Shel Zahav." But Bonita Leeds, who came in from Manhattan for the concert, particularly enjoyed reflecting on the first piece, Pastorals.

"It was very calming and very soothing. It put me in kind of a zen-like mood," she said.

The concert was the third of four string quartet performances in Jersey City last month as part of Con Vivo's "Spring Quartet Festival," which also included shows based on Puerto Rican, Argentine, and other global compositions.

"We try to be eclectic and represent the community of Jersey City," Hollander Ames said.

At least for one afternoon, Beth El was thrilled to have Con Vivo dedicate their music to the Jewish community.

"The question asked on the streets of New York City has always been 'How do I get to Carnegie Hall?' After this performance, the question on the streets of Jersey City will be 'How can I get to Beth El?'" Irwin Rosen, Beth El's president, said.