For the past five years, Debbie Winston has been a frequent flier for her faith.

Monthly, she has commuted monthly from her home in Minneapolis halfway across the country to Asheville, singing the full range of the Jewish liturgy as the cantorial intern of Congregation Beth Ha Tephila.

This weekend, Winston returns to Asheville to sing at a fund-raising concert that also serves as her senior recital. After five years, Winston has completed her cantorial studies through the American Conference of Cantors and Hebrew Union College.

"There is more liturgy in Judaism than in any other religion," said Winston. Cantors must learn to chant all the liturgies for weekdays, Sabbaths and the High Holidays. "Time is marked in Judaism as melody."

Winston spent 20 years as a Minneapolis paramedic, singing on the side at the synagogue where she was raised. But in 1997, Winston decided she needed to get her credentials as an invested, or ordained, cantor.

Unlike the music director at a Christian church, a cantor in a Jewish synagogue must take on many pastoral duties.

She has subbed for Rabbi Robert Ratner during the summer, giving sermons from the pulpit and visiting sick members in the hospital. She officiates at bar and bat mitzvahs, weddings and funerals. Besides her academic studies in the Jewish musical tradition and music theory, Winston also had to delve into philosophy and Jewish history.

But mainly at Beth Ha Tephila, she coordinates all the music to be used in the services. In recent decades, Reform Judaism has seen a movement toward more contemporary, melodic music that is sung not just by the cantor but by the whole congregation, she explained.

Winston has been instrumental in introducing that music to Beth Ha Tephila. "She brings a love of Jewish music and gets everybody enthusiastic about Jewish music," said Ratner.

"Music is not a spectator sport," said Winston.

And music not only enriches the faith of Jews, it can reach across the barriers of belief. "Music touches a Christian the way it touches a Muslim, the way it touches a Jew," said Winston. "When it comes to music there is only one language."