The hazzan, or cantor, leads the congregation in prayer, and the exact description of the office is easily missed: he is the emissary of the congregation, praying on its behalf.
Emissary of the community
The technical term names the hazzan the shaliach tzibbur, the messenger or emissary of the congregation, one who stands before the ark and leads the prayers as the representative of all present, carrying their worship rather than performing for them, so that the office is one of representation. In practice the hazzan chanting of the liturgy, in the traditional modes and melodies, gives the service its musical form, and in the great tradition of cantorial music the office became one of high vocal art.
Voice and learning
Any competent adult may lead the prayers, so the hazzan is not a priest and the office is not an order, but the leading of the more elaborate services came to require skill in the traditional chant and knowledge of the liturgy, and the professional cantor, trained and appointed by a congregation, became a fixture beside the rabbi, the one teaching and deciding, the other leading the sung worship. In the modern movements the office is held by women as well as men. The hazzan stands within a wide family of those who lead sung worship, but the particular sense of the office, the emissary who prays in the name of the assembled congregation, is distinctively its own.