Upon her ordination in 2009, Hazzan Ellen Miller Arad was immediately  asked to join the faculty of the HL Miller Cantorial School, where she developed a course in lifecycle events for cantorial and rabbinical students, as well as basic guitar and song leading.  Hazzan Arad joyfully served First Hebrew Congregation as High Holiday Hazzan for 10 years. Most recently, she has served Rumson Jewish Center @ Congregation B’nai Israel as their solo interim spiritual leader, including serving as their High Holiday hazzan for 2 years. Hazzan Arad has served the Jewish  community for many years as an educator, lay leader, hazzan, and has had chaplaincy  internships  at New York Presbyterian Hospital and the Hebrew Home in Riverdale. In  addition, she has served on the Executive Council of the Cantors Assembly and has had the opportunity to visit  various communities across the country as a guest  lecturer, scholar-in-residence, and High Holiday  Hazzan.   
 
Hazzan Arad considers herself to be a new kind of spiritual leader, and is passionate about fostering Jewish literacy, continuity and spirituality, through music, through teaching and through building community; in 2018 this passion took her to Barcelona, where, through a joint initiative of The Cantors Assembly and Masorti Olami, she was sent to help strengthen the presence and visibility of non-Orthodox Jewish communities in Europe. The story of her road to the cantorate has recently been published in a collection of essays entitled At My Pace, in which she credits her beloved and celebrated mentor, Cantor Lawrence Avery, z”l, with setting her foot upon this path.  A self-taught guitarist from the age of 12, Ellen is a mezzo-soprano skilled in a wide variety of vocal styles; she is equally comfortable playing her guitar for a community event, or davening from the bimah. Hazzan Arad holds a BA from Brandeis University, an MA from NYU in Communications, an MA in Jewish Education from JTS, as well as an MA  and Ordination in Sacred Music from the Miller School.