Registration and Scholarship Applications now open
KlezKanada's Laurentian Retreat - Monday, August 21 - Sunday, August 27, 2017.
Register Now for KlezKanada 2017
From Andrea Pancur on Facebook:
Are you 26 or younger? Were you born after August 10, 1990? Do play an instrument? If so, come join the young Israeli Jewish and Arab musicians on an exciting journey of discovery... Haven't you always wanted to go to Haifa? Do you have some free time between the July 23 and August 10 to travel, rehearse and meet new people? Then apply for the Yiddish Summer CARAVAN ORCHESTRA Project until March 31: yiddishsummer.eu/special/caravan.html
More on Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/346286172119179/
Posted by Andrea Pancur on Facebook:
The Foward says so, and the whole Yiddish Summer Team is delighted: The most important festival for Jewish music is Yiddish Summer Weimar. If you, too, want to indulge into the sublime festival atmosphere for a week or even a whole month (July 15 - Aug 12) you can register right away for one or more workshops about song, instrumental music, badkhones, hasidic music, middle eastern music, yiddish language, story-telling, dance and dance orchestra.
Do so until March 31 and benefit from the Early Bird discount. Here's the link to the registration: yiddishsummer.eu/main/workshops/registration.html
North American Jewish Choir Festival
July 16–20, 2017
Hudson Valley Resort and Spa,
400 Granite Road
Kerhonkson NY 12446
* Instant Choirs for All Singers
* Daily Community Sings
* Workshops Galore
* Outstanding Performers
* Opportunities
This Summer Also Features a
SPECIAL TRACK FOR
SYNAGOGUE CHORAL SINGERS
* Learn Contemporary and Traditional Synagogue Classics
* Improve Your Skills
* Bring New Inspiration to Next Year's Holidays
Bay area folks may enjoy this article about Jeanette Lewicki and tonight's performance, "Comedienne in a Hasid's Pants: Pepi Litman."
Local singer brings to life cross-dressing Yiddish vaudevillian, Hannah Rubin, Jan 12, 2017, J Weekly
epi Litman may have been born in the 1800s, but from reading the details of her life, you wouldn't know it. A cross-dressing performer with undeniable Yiddish swagger, Litman toured Eastern Europe with her vaudeville theater troupe, singing songs about politics, archaic religious traditions and the death of bureaucracy.… [more]
We are excited to open registration for Yiddish New York (YNY) and to announce this year's programs and faculty. YNY is a 6-day workshop/festival that will run from Thursday, December 24 - Tuesday, December 29, 2016.
YNY's daytime programs at the 14th Street Y and adjacent Town and Village Synagogue include workshops in klezmer music, Yiddish song, language and theater, as well as lectures, panel discussions, films, walking tours and more, all led by a faculty of the Yiddish world's leading contemporary artists and scholars. YNY evenings will be filled with concerts, dance parties, a visual arts exhibition and jam sessions at venues around Manhattan's Lower East Side & East Village, neighborhoods steeped in Yiddish cultural history. We have great programs for kids and teens, and family members of all ages!
More info: www.yiddishnewyork.com
The 5th International Jewish Music Festival competition 2017 will be held from May 4-8th, 2017 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. It is a double celebration year as this will mark the 20th International Jewish Music Festival is held in Amsterdam. Preliminary rounds and semi-finals of the Music Competition will be held in the redesigned Uilenburger Synagoge with the Grand Finale taking place on May 8th at the spectacular DeLaMar theater holding a 1000 audience.
More info, registration, at ijmf.wordpress.com
I am late to post this
The European Cantors association is happy to announce that booking is open for the 11th European Cantors Convention taking place in Prague from Thursday 17 to Sunday 20 November 2016.
Guest lecturers will be Cantor Naftali Herstik and maestro Raymond Goldstein as well as a choir from the Tel Aviv Academy of Cantorial studies
All those interested in Jewish prayer music based on the orthodox tradition are welcome to attend. As well as lectures and masterclasses there will be a gala concert on one of the most beautiful synagogues in Prague and a tour of Jewish Prague. And best of all cantos and choir will illuminate two beautiful Prague synagogues with memorable music and prayer over Shabbat.
More details, a flyer that you can download and print off and the registration form can be found on the website www.cantors.eu.
The Yiddish Book Center's annual program has gradually become a sort of "Eastern European Jewish Music AllStars" program, with lectures, workshops on dance and playing music and singing, as well as a host of great concerts. You won't actually hear much "new Yiddish music," but you will hear an awful lot of the best, performed by the best veterans around. This year, the UK's Polina and Merlin Shepherd are brought into the mix, which means even more great music. Paul Shapiro will bring back his delightful "Brisket 'n' Ribs Revue," one of my favorite excursions into the delightful world of Jewish/Black lyrics and music from the earlier part of the last century. Essen! It will all end in a mammoth AllStars concert honoring Shalom Aleichem's 100th yahrzeit.
Yidstock 2016: The Festival of New Yiddish Music, Thu July 14, 2016 - Sun July 17, 2016
YIDSTOCK 2016 will bring the best in klezmer and new Yiddish music to the stage at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts. Don't miss out on what promises to be a great festival of music and related events.
Festival info from the Yiddish Book Center website
Have me mentioned that Yiddish New York event is taking place right now!? You can find out more at yiddishnewyork.org
Working To 'Construct' A 'New Yiddish Culture': Josh Waletzky is creating a new festival to celebrate a culture in the making., by Sandee Brawarsky, 15-Dec-2015
Q.: What the genesis of the idea for Yiddish New York?
A: It grew out of some discussions taking place informally among some artists who are veterans of the klezmer revival camp scene, the granddaddy being KlezKamp. There's a year-round rotation of festivals that include workshops, lectures, special events, concerts dedicated to Yiddish culture. KlezKamp, which ended its run after 30 very productive years, was on a number of people's minds. Last winter was its last session, and a number people were saying there would be a hole in the calendar. New York, which was the home base of KlezKamp (even though it was held an hour north of the city in the Catskills) is for all intents and purposes the world capital of Yiddish culture, both historically and in the concentration of individuals and institutions active in that scene. We couldn't just leave this hole in the schedule and not have New York represented, with all the world-class people actively engaged in creating Yiddish culture here. So we proceeded in tasking certain individuals in areas of their expertise and experience, like trumpeter, bandleader and composer Frank London, who has been the artistic director of KlezKanada for some time. We're had an embarrassment of riches putting together the faculty. [more]
This is the best reason to spend the end of December in NYC, EVER
Yiddish New York
Thursday, December 24 - Tuesday, December 29, 2015
www.yiddishnewyork.com
Yiddish New York (YNY) is a new festival/cultural immersion gathering for Yiddish music, language and culture combining workshops, lectures and performances from Thursday, December 24 - Tuesday, December 29, 2015. With its hub at the 14th St. Y and adjacent Town and Village Synagogue, Yiddish New York will take place at a variety of venues in Manhattan's vibrant and historic Lower East Side/East Village. Faculty/speakers represent many of the leading figures in Yiddish culture today. Open to individuals of all ages, backgrounds and families with children!
Daily Programs in.... Klezmer Music - Yiddish Song - Yiddish Dance - Theater - Yiddish Language - Yiddish Culture and History - Visual Arts - Foodways - Master Classes - Ensembles - Dance Parties - Jam Sessions - Concerts - Lectures - Films - Spirituality and Religion - Neighborhood Walking Tours - Youth and Teen Programs - and More!
CLICK HERE FOR INFORMATION ABOUT REGISTERING!
The Boston Jewish Film Festival is one of the places where I get to explore an always mind-blowing array of Jewish experience and history. I look forward to it each year. This year is light on the music films, but breadth is traded for depth—a very special music about Iraqi Jewish music plays this coming Saturday night in Boston, at the MFA.
Tix and more info at: www.mfa.org/programs/film/on-the-banks-of-the-tigris. While you're there, check out other films playing between now and the 16th. What I've seen so far has been inspiring and wonderful. You are sure to find even more to tickle your fancy and help keep an important local Jewish institution thriving.
Coolidge Corner Cafe Crawl
Rescheduled from last spring!
June 4, 2015, 8-10pm
Ehud Ettun & Haruka Yabuno at Panera Bread
299 Harvard Street
Two of Boston's outstanding jazz artists, Israeli-born bassist
Ehud Ettun & pianist
Haruko Yabuno bring their prodigious talent together for an unforgettable evening.
Here's a taste:
Thalia Zedek at 16 Handles
1309 Beacon Street
Boston indie legend
Thalia Zedek brings her soulful, poignant sound and guitar to this gig--to be joined by a cellist! Don't miss something different at a yogurt/smoothie joint.
The Rosenthals at Blue Hills Bank
1337 Beacon Street
Bluegrass meets jazz. Dan and Phil Rosenthal bring unique their mix to our sponsor's location, Blue Hills Bank. When's the last time you heard a banjo and a trumpet together? Or heard really great music at a bank, for that matter.
Di Bostoner Klezmer at Kolbo
437 Harvard Street
Well-known Boston musicians Dena Ressler and Corey Pesaturo bring their lively and wonderful music to one of Boston's favorite Judaica stores. A shidduch made in heaven.
yiddishmusic.com
Part of the Boston Jewish Music Festival—who can always use your contributions, your help as volunteers, and heck, don't forget to attend this coming spring!
You begin to sense when an event really matters when you realize how many people have forwarded notices to you about it. I've gotten a slew about this one. What I don't understand is why this is being promoted as a klezmer concert—I mean, I assume there will be lots of klezmer, but if I had an assembly of world mandolin masters this good playing anything from kid's songs to the Sun Ra songbook, I'd probably reach out to the broadest possible audience, from bluegrass to acoustic music fans, on out. If you live anywhere that can reach this concert, you will kick yourself if you don't attend:
The Ger Mandolin Orchestra will make its NYC debut on June 18, at Skirball Center NYU, as part of KulturfestNYC. This is a really unique ensemble representing a little-known but quintessential Jewish musical tradition. Sheesh, this was popular entertainment even in this country with dozens of Workmen's Circle-sponsored mandolin orchestras a century ago. Ger Mandolin Orchestra features an amazing all-star cast of musicians from North America and Europe whose specialties include klezmer, Yiddish, bluegrass, jazz, classical, Brazilian music and much more. It is very rare for this group to come together and we're looking forward to sharing this amazing story and our unique music with NY audiences. Best way to get a taste of what they're about is to check this mini-doc about their Toronto show two years ago, or this short AFP news piece from the band's trip to Poland in 2011. Like them on Facebook to keep up with latest news.
Find Your Joy
at the 26th Annual North American Jewish Choral Festival
* Inspiring Conductors
* New Workshops and Presenters
* Musical Memorial Tributes to
Gil Aldema z"l and Yehezkel Braun z"l
* Special Track for Young Singers 18-30
* Fascinating Focus on Ladino Music
and the 12th Annual Hallel V'Zimrah Award to
FLORY JAGODA
Join our Community July 12 - 16, 2015
If you Love Jewish Music, You've Got to Be There!
More info and registration: www.wizevents.com/register/landing.php?id=3192
Wednesday, May 13: Special Launch Event for the Stonehill Jewish Music Collection. Mark your calendar for an event celebrating the launch of a new website http://www.ctmd.org/stonehill.htm) for the Ben Stonehill Jewish Song Collection!
In 1948, only 3 years after the war, Ben Stonehill recorded over a thousand songs from Holocaust survivors temporarily housed at the Hotel Marseilles after arriving in America. And on May 13, at this very hotel, we will be able to listen to some of the rare and important songs Stonehill captured for posterity. Though Stonehill passed away in 1964, we will hear his voice describing what he saw and heard in that lobby.
The evening will feature a presentation by Yiddish specialist and scholar Miriam Isaacs, Ph.D., herself born in a German DP camp. She has worked with CTMD to create a website which makes available the recordings and lyrics to many of these songs. Isaacs will describe the history and contents of the site and will play a few excerpts of the original songs, sung by men, women and children, mainly in Yiddish, but also Russian and Hebrew. Collectively, this body of song constitutes a haunting testimony to survivors' resilience, courage and humor.
We are thrilled that Masha Leon, one of the singers recorded at the time by Stonehill, will be joining us to share her experience and grace us with a song! A number of the songs will come alive as we will listen to contemporary singers in a zingeray (song-sharing session), featuring several wonderful exponents of traditional Yiddish and Russian song, including Isaacs, Carol Freeman, Esther Gottesman, Craig Packard, and Binyumen Schaechter.
The event will be followed by a reception with light refreshments. Programmed in partnership with the Sholem Aleichem Cultural Center. We are grateful for the assistance of ethnomusicologist Bret Werb of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Lorin Sklamberg of the YIVO Institute, Paula Teitelbaum, Binyumin Schaechter, Craig Packard and Itzik Gottesman for their assistance with this project, as well as the support of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Marinus and Minna B. Koster Foundation and the Atran Foundation.
At the Hotel Marseilles, 230 West 103 Street in Manhattan (SW corner of West 103rd Street and Broadway). Admission is free! (7:00PM-8:30PM).
From generation to generation/ Fun dor tsu dor "
19th of april until 25th of April 2015
Reserved for families this week of immersion in Yiddish culture offers parents and children to share common activities: singing, klezmer music, dance, cooking, introduction to Yiddish, evening shows, concerts, tales and lullabies ... and tourism , tasting of local products, rest, read ...
The smallest are welcome in the kindershul for animations adapted to their age.
The team is led by Marthe Desrosières, flutist.
Members include: Lloica Czackis singer; Andreas Schmitges, dancer, mandolin, guitar; Eleonore Biezunski, violinist, singer.
The stay is in residence, in a magnificent nineteenth
located 17 km from Limoges: Château de Ligoure.
For further information do not hesitate to contact Marthe Desrosieres.
yiddishweb.com/fundortsudor
If you get excited by the diversity of Jewish music, than the arrival of the Boston Jewish Music Festival at the tail end of a long, cold winter, is the surest harbinger of spring.
This year, the music ranges from ancient piyyut to Klezmer. Tonight, following last night's music Sabbaths, the festival kicks off in earnest with the return of the Israeli ensemble, Yemen Blues
This is a case where I can claim to have known the person "back when," since Ellie and I met back in the mid-1970s in Jerusalem. I don't think that either of us back then considered "Jewish music" to be a relevant term. We were both Arik Einstein fans, of course. But, we were young.
Now, Ellie is on the verge of a doctorate and the Jewish Music Festival is celebrating one last time in its current form. It's a big deal. I first heard bands like Brave Old World and The Klezmatics at the festival, along with Bukharian Jewish music, cantorial music, and an ever-growing wide range of new and old traditions. Having taken over the festival full-time from founder and Holocaust survivor Ursula Sherman, in 2004, Berkeley is finally giving her some respect:
Berkeley honors Eleanor Shapiro during final year of Jewish Music Festival
From Eve Sicular:
My 2009 Sara Ivry interview just re-posted by Tablet Magazine in time for our 2015 sneak preview of the new run for 'J. EDGAR KLEZMER: Songs from My Grandmother's FBI Files' (Feb 6th at The Actors Temple NYC; Feb 12-15 at Centenary Stage Company, Hackettstown NJ). I obtained the declassified documents on Grandma—Dr. Adele Sicular—through a Freedom of Information Act request, and created a piece of musical documentary theater we're now bringing back with Isle of Klezbos & Metropolitan Klezmer bandmates. A few government surveillance revelations have surfaced meanwhile.
If you're not on their email list, or their snailmail list, or you aren't following them on Facebook, then you probably don't know yet that the Boston Jewish Music Festival has announced this year's schedule. We're talking about a range that goes from "Sacred songs of Hindus and Jews" with Cantor Randall Schloss and Deepti Navaratna, to a movie about Doc Pomus and the return of Israeli world-music ensemble Yemen Blues. Did I mention Sarah Aroeste and Diwan Saz (piyyut music via Israel)?
It's cold outside. What better time to start planning your spring: www.bostonjewishmusicfestival.org
Must highlight this event: Two of the most creative people in Jewish music today have come together for an event that resonates deeply with recent events. I'm almost ready to fly to San Francisco and add my voice—you'll have to do it for me.
Book of J
Wednesday, December 17, 7:30pm
Canessa Gallery
708 Montgomery Street
San Francisco, CA
$10-$15 sliding scale, buy here
If you are interested in where old-time religion meets radical politics, Book of J is for you. We do songs that started life in Black and White religious communities and were later adopted by organizers for racial, economic and social justice. In the tradition of the Hebrew prophets, the songs ask for devotion and righteousness and offer power beyond what one still small voice can effect. Expect angels and demons, workers and bosses, hard times resolved and destiny fulfilled. Also singing along is good. Book of J is Jewlia Eisenberg and Jeremiah Lockwood (Sway Machinery).
Academic Conference on Jewish Liturgical music
University of Leeds, UK
Tuesday 16 - Friday 19 June 2015
AHRC "Care for the Future" Theme, Performing the Jewish Archive
For the first time in Britain an International Academic Conference is being devoted to the music of Jewish prayer. Internationally acclaimed scholars in Jewish liturgical music will lead the programme presented jointly by the School of Music, University of Leeds and the Academic Wing of the European Cantors Association.
The conference is organised in association with the international research project Performing the Jewish Archive, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
There are a host of interesting and significant events happening this week in our northeast corner of the country.
Tonight, in NYC, Jeremiah Lockwood, leader of The Sway Machinery is back on this coast and will be debuting his new CD and offering up a tribute to his late mentor, Carolina Slim. Expect lots of blues.
Tomorrow night in Manhattan, CTMD and others present the exceptionally exciting NYC premier of Deborah Strauss's new women's klezmer violin trio, Figelin. More info at the KlezmerShack calendar. I might note that the trio is also appearing on Monday night in Brooklyn.
Most important for me, however, is the 2nd Annual Klezmer Festival at the Regattabar, here in Cambridge. Two of the most interesting Klezmer fusion bands, Klezwoods and KCB clarinetist Ilene Stahl's Klezperanto join forces. I've waited years to see Klezperanto again. This is going to be big. According to Ilene, we'll get the world premiere of lots of new repertoire and special guest, Kasia Sokalla, singer
Wednesday, for those lucky enough to be in Manhattan, Zisl Slepovitch is previewing his new Litvakus CD. I've heard it, and this is killer. It's called Raysn: The Lost Jewish Music of Belarus, and Dr. Slepovitch will also give a talk. He spent a decade researching the hidden musical treasures of Jewish Belarus (White Russia, also known in Yiddish as "Raysn") with the late, noted scholar Nina Stepanskaya. CTMD's Pete Rushefsky will interview Slepovitch during the program. More info on the KlezmerShack calendar, of course.
Those who have scanned the KlezmerShack calendar may have noticed that Mark Rubin and the Youngers of Zion will be performing next week in Lafayette, LA. What you may not know is that you can tune in. Pay what you want, and the Blackpot Festival and Valcour Records Present will be playing this 30 minute (or longer) show directly into their laptop, just for you! Feel free to request songs in the chat room and leave a tip when you enjoy something.
Details at www.concertwindow.com/shows/9884-blackpot-festival-and-valcour-records-present-mark-
From Eitan of the "Voice of Israel." The Klezmatics are in town for a sacred music festival:
Musicians Frank London and David Licht of the Grammy award-winning band The Klezmatics perform live in-studio on VOI's Yishai Fleisher Show. Tune in for a fun conversation about culture, sacred music, and 'Jewy' pride.
Kind of neat that Jewish music makes it to an event of this type. Clearly klezmer is no longer avant garde ;-) (but that's been true for decades). Stephen Baum writes:
"Hankus Netsky is speaking at TheRetreat—a three day experience in Jewish learning, fellowship, davening, and sports at Camp Ramah in Palmer, Massachusetts. His subject is Klezmer music, and its migration from Europe to America—a migration that each of you has been a part of."
Info: www.theretreatfjmc.com/
tel: 781-724-2551
"The lecture itself is on Thursday, June 12th, beginning at 8:00 PM. Afterwards there will be some unstructured hospitality at the camp, but I'd really like to see that evolve into a Klezmer jam session.
"TheRetreat itself opens at 3:00 PM that day, with dinner at 5:45, and Ma'ariv at 7:15. It can be a wonderful weekend, and we expect around a hundred Jewish men from the New England, Hudson Valley, and Connecticut regions to attend. The first timer fee for the full weekend, including 4 Days and 3 Nights of a shared room in Camp Ramah's bunks, kosher meals & snacks, plus all lectures and activities is $250 for first timers, $315 for those who have been before.
"You are also, of course, welcome to just come for the evening itself, and that is free. It is a little over an hour from the Weston tolls at the I-90/128 intersection. If you'd like to, you could join us for dinner, and if you'd rather stay the night and join us for breakfast, that would be great too. The full weekend is a Men's Club regional event, but there are enough available bunk houses that it would be no problem to accommodate women who would prefer to stay over to Friday. Coming just for the lecture and jam session would be free, but if you'd like to come for full evening and following morning, it would be $75. Again, check the web site specified above for further information."
Folk Arts and Social Change Awardees Nana Korantema Ayeboafo and Elaine Hoffman Watts will be honored on June 7th at the Philadelphia Folklore Project annual bash.
The party runs from 6 PM - 9 PM at the Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine Street, in Philadelphia. Expect food, fun, engaging activities, a wonderful crowd of people, and an all-around joyful evening! This year's Birthday Bash marks big changes at PFP, includes great performances (with your participation), and it honors amazing women who are inspiring models in folk arts and change. Support the Philadelphia Folklore Project and honor people in our region whose work in folk arts and social change is inspiring.
More info: www.folkloreproject.org/about/news/PFP27thBirthdayBash.php
Too many events to list, and it's not even Ashkenaz week yet!
Wondering when to catch your next Boston Red Sox game? Thursday, May 29 is "Jewish Heritage Night" at Fenway Park. di bostoner klezmer is thrilled to have been invited to play before the game on Yawkey Way as fans go into the stadium to see the Red Sox playing. We play from 5:40 P.M. for 50 minutes. Come say hello. It will be fun.
Thursday, May 29at 5:40pm - 6:30pm
1 Yawkey Place,
Boston, MA
From The London Klezmer Quartet:
I'm very excited to let you know that we're planning a klezmer course in Derbyshire for the end of August. Following on from the wildly popular KlezNorth spring weekend, a special course with the London Klezmer Quartet will be held 29-31 August in the same picturesque Peak District village. This one is for those who would like to delve deeper into the instrumental side of things. Course numbers will be capped at 30.
Youlgrave Village Hall, Holywell Lane, Youlgrave, Derbyshire DE45 1UT
Jam: Friday 8.30pm til late at the Farmyard Inn
Course runs Saturday 11am to Sunday 1pm
LKQ in concert Saturday 8pm followed by session with optional dancing
From our friends Jeff Warschauer and Deborah Strauss:
JEWJAM SOUTH!
THIS AUGUST 10-13!
AN EXCITING BRAND-NEW PROGRAM.
Join us for JewJamSouth, a four-day celebration of Jewish choral music, Yiddish song and klezmer music this August in Clayton, GA!
JewJamSouth will take place on August 10–13, 2014, at Ramah Darom's campus in the beautiful North Georgia mountains. The event is designed for passionate Jewish choral singers, klezmer instrumentalists, Hebrew and Yiddish singers and their families. Whether you are an experienced practitioner or a newcomer, this four-day festival will offer a feast of musical inspiration, ideas and fun.
JewJamSouth is open to people of all levels and backgrounds, and no previous experience is needed. Beginners are welcome.
Throughout the four days, you'll have a chance to participate in a hands-on ensemble program and study, perform and be mentored by world-renowned faculty:
The event will culminate in a one-of-a-kind joint choral/klezmer gala performance.
Email Bennie Cohen with any questions, and register now, as spots are filling up quickly!
It's a free preview, and the Boston Jewish Film Festival is great folks to hang with. This could be a lot of fun.
Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon
7:00 pm, Thursday, May 29
West Newton Cinema
In his directorial debut, Mike Myers (Wayne's World) documents the astounding career of Hollywood legend Shep Gordon. Following a chance encounter with Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, Shep went on to manage an eclectic list of artists. Gordon's unlikely story is told by those who know him best, his pals, including Alice Cooper, Michael Douglas, Sylvester Stallone, Anne Murray, Willie Nelson, Emeril Lagasse and more.
Don't miss your chance for this sneak preview screening of Supermensch, which will open in theaters in June!
Register online to reserve your space.
Susan Leviton
Deep Skies, 2013
Available from susanlevitonarts.com
This is a special album. It doesn't re-imagine Yiddish (mostly) standards. Rather, Susan Leviton presents them in a form that enables us to re-hear them, and re-imagine them for ourselves. In digging into the poetry of these songs, we regain insight into a particular world, but also into the human condition.... [more]
If you live in NYC, you can hear the artist tonight as part of the New York Klezmer Series, at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, 30 W. 68th St., NYC
KlezKamp--30th ANNIVERSARY--SAVE THE DATE!
Dec. 23–29, 2014
30th Annual Yiddish Folk Arts Program
Shabbos KlezKamp in honor of our 30th Anniversary
Helping Yiddish culture flourish for 30 years!
Klezmer music and Yiddish Yiddish song, dance, theater, language, crafts, folklore and poetry--at all levels--taught by the world's most inspirational teachers. Full children's and teens programs. Held in the Catskills at the Hudson Valley Resort and Spa, Kerhonkson, NY.
Later in September, please visit www.klezkamp.org
Ahmet Erdogdular and Makam New York are presenting the third annual Turkish Music Institute here in New York City at Columbia University from May 2-6—teachers are Ross Daly (bowed lyra), Ahmet Erdoğdular (vocals), Yurdal Tokcan (oud) and Ömer Erdoğdular (ney)—more info is here: makamnewyork.org
On May 2 the faculty will perfom a concert at Symphony Space (95th and Broadway):
Makam New York captures the vibrant spirit of musical makam traditions of Greece, Asia Minor, Balkans, and the Levant. Internationally acclaimed musicians explore the timeless beauty in the artistic expression of Turkish, Greece, Sephardic Jewish, and Armenian composers, as well as their own pieces. Ross Daly, Ahmet Erdoğdular, Yurdal Tokcan and Ömer Erdoğdular captivate their audiences with interpretations of centuries old pieces, their own contemporary compositions, and improvisations on ney, oud, tarhu, Cretan lyra and voice. More information here: www.symphonyspace.org/event/8350/Music/makam-new-york
Sunday, April 6, 11:00am
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
15 West 16th Street,
New York, New York 10011
Tix: www.smarttix.com
Around 1900, East European Jews became acutely aware of the impact of modernization and urbanization on their culture: on their songs, their tales, and customs. They set in motion a wide range of projects and institutions to gather, archive, and study fading folklore. YIVO was a pioneer in this push, along with a galaxy of Polish and Russian (later Soviet) activists. Today, with the loss of the original population and the huge demographic and cultural shifts of world Jewry, the surviving archives both preserve and channel a rising tide of interest, even a hunger, for what's called "Yiddish" music and folklore.
This symposium brings together archivists, scholars and performers to discuss the history and creation of Yiddish folk music archives, and the future of the study and performance of Yiddish song today. What is the role of Jewish music archives in fostering new scholarship and Yiddish music?
The event is dedicated to the memory of Chana Mlotek, YIVO's Music Archivist from 1978 until her recent passing at age 91 in 2013.
Chair: Mark Slobin, Wesleyan University
More info: yivo.org/events/index.php?tid=202&aid=1253
Facebook: www.facebook.com/events/1385490075009062/
KlezKanada 2014
YIDDISH IS UNDEAD!
The Mystical and Supernatural in Ashkenazic Jewish Folklore and Practice
Mon, Aug 18 - Sun Aug 24, 2014
Camp Bnai Brith
Lantier, Quebec, Canada
If you have not yet registered, please do so here, as soon as possible. Reserve your place now before we fill up!
Scholarship applications are now open for emerging artists and scholars, ages 16 to 35. This internationally renowned program offers students an opportunity to study with many of the leading teachers of Yiddish/Jewish music and culture, and make friends and form artistic partnerships that will last a lifetime. Apply here.
Celebrate the Centerpiece of the Jewish Choral Movement
Join us at the 25th Annual North American Jewish Choral Festival
July 20 - 24, 2014
Hudson Valley Resort and Spa, NY
Click here to register now
LaM'natzeach Award to Matthew Lazar
For Sparking a Renaissance of Jewish Choral Music
11th Hallel V'Zimrah Award to Marsha Bryan Edelman and Dan Freelander
Celebrating 25 Years of Song! This year's Festival includes A Choral Festival Retrospective Commemorative Journal NAJCF "Then and Now" Photos
Plus
More Choral Performances
More Community Singing
Special Young Adult Programming
Exciting New Workshops
The Mayrent Institute for Yiddish Culture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is pleased to announce "Viskonsin! Tales from Yiddish Wisconsin," a new project on Yiddish culture in the upper Midwest. With Viskonsin!, we seek to uncover the often hidden history of Yiddish life in the Midwest which, while it mirrored Jewish communities in larger cities, took on a unique character all its own.
This program will feature invited speakers, community history panels, and a participatory concert and sing-along.
From Geraldine Auerbach:
Booking is now officially open for the ECA Budapest Cantors Convention
July 2014: Thursday 10 - Monday 14th.
Guest teachers: Asher Hainovitz and Yaakov Motzen
Subject the High Holydays
Convention includes Shabbat Services in the Hungarian tradition, a concert by world class cantors and an evening for young talent to perform. It also includes a Tour of Jewish Budapest and a personal tour of the Dohány Street Synagogue on Sunday afternoon.
Fees: full fee is £245 and for students it is £145. Some scholarships are available particularly for Eastern European delegates. There is a £15 discount on all bookings before 30 April.
This year the prices include (as well as breakfast and light lunches) Shabbat lunch and dinners on Thursday, Friday and Sunday for delegates. Accommodation is not included, but for early bookers there is a special discount price at the Convention Hotel: The Golden Park, which is near the synagogue. (See below for details)
Accompanying guests may to join us for evening meals and entertainment as well as Shabbes lunch and the Tours for reasonable prices. Please book these on the Registration Form.
Details and registration form from the ECA website www.cantors.eu
From Pete Rushefsky, writing to the Jewish-Music mailing list:
"We've just put up a new archival video on Bessarabian klezmer clarinetist German Goldenshteyn on the CTMD Archives website: www.ctmd.org/archives.htm in anticipation of Tuesday night's Tantshoyz Yiddish Dance Party featuring Michael Alpert, Alex Kontorovich and Naum Goldenshteyn:
Carl Dimow, flutist, guitarist, arranger and composer for the Casco Bay Tummlers, will be continuing his Klezmer Ensemble class at Portland Conservatory of Music, and it's open to new members. The fall class was a blast and the ensemble sat in with the Tummlers at the annual Chanukah party at Temple Etz Chaim in Biddeford.
The next four sessions will be once a month, on Friday mornings. The dates and times are Fridays 10:30 AM-12:00 PM, 1/24, 2/28, 3/28, and 5/2. The tuition is $80 for members, (currently enrolled private lesson students at the Conservatory), and $100 for non-members.
The only requirement for the class is a basic facility on your instrument. In the class we'll be learning and arranging a number of classic klezmer tunes. In the process we'll learn some of the scales and rhythms that define this music. We'll also discuss the history of the music and listen to recordings by influential musicians.
To register for the class, contact Portland Conservatory, (which is located at Woodfords Church, 202 Woodford St., Portland). Tel: 775-3356. portlandconservatoryofmusic.org/registration. Or contact Carl for more information – 207-615-1550 – www.carldimow.com
It's coming this spring, it's diverse, and it's hot. Whatever your Jewish music inclinations, make sure you check out the schedule for the upcoming Boston Jewish Music Festival.
From a post to the Jewish-Music mailing list. Not clear if the launch activity is a lecture, concert, or both:
Julian Futter and Mike Aylward are proud to announce the launch of a new CD - "Wandering Stars" - the story of Gimpel's Lemberg Yiddish theatre.
We are launching this CD on Thursday 5 Dec at 8.00p.m. at the New London Synagogue, 33 Abbey Rd, London, NW8 0AT and anyone who is in London is welcome to come.
In 1900 Lemberg was one of the most important cities in the Austro-Hungarian Empire with a population of 160,000, of whom a third were Jewish. The Lemberg theatre was the first permanent and most important Yiddish theatre in Europe.
Sholem Aleichem visited in 1905 and based his novel "Wandering Stars" on his experiences there.
In 1910 Franz Kafka was profoundly affected when he saw members of the troupe perform in Prague , Joseph Roth and Mark Chagall were also hugely influenced by what they saw.
The theatre gave birth to a unique form of musical drama that to a significant extent shaped popular American culture.
Thanks to the efforts of a small band of record collectors and discographers operating worldwide, many of these records have been documented and copies located and it is now possible for the first time in over 100 years to give a voice to this silenced civilization whose destruction has been rigorously documented, but whose achievements have so far been largely unexplored. Listen to songs about weddings, wild women, drinking, the original Yidl mit sein Fidl, a Hatikvah recorded in 1909, an out of control Simchas Torah and, of course, Sex.
The recordings are accompanied by a richly illustrated, full colour, 40 page booklet which places the theatre in its historical context, provides full biographies of the artists and detailed information on all the recordings.
CD available online: www.honestjons.com/shop.php?pid=43514&CatID=124
Canadian writer Richard Simas travels to Brazil for Kleztival, Brazil's Great Jewish Music Event, 2012, written November 2012. Participants came from Brazil, Latin America, North America, and Europe.
Mix traditional Eastern European Klezmer tunes such as bulgars, freylaks, horas, and nigunim with strains of samba, salsa, and tango, and you have Jewish music, South American style. Add Berber sounds from the deserts, new-jazz inflected original compositions from Israel and Brooklyn, a cumbia style dance-band, and Brazilian choirs and you are hearing Kleztival 2012, São Paulo's third annual Klezmer music event. [more]
It's official, the grand Philadelphia outreach klezmer jam/open mic/cabaret/community dance project is finally, officially, a non-profit. For now, that means that they need people to show up and participate—easy to do. Sessions occur on the 1st Sunday of each month (although this month's was deferred due to Labor Day).
Celebrate first Sundays with your family, friends and neighbors.
1:00-3:00pm, Main Line Reform Temple, 410 Montgomery Avenue, Wynnewood, PA 19096
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Enjoy Light refreshments along with fabulous klezmer, dancing and schmoozing
You can find out more at the group's home page which also contains a link to download sheet music (and get directions to the Main Line Reform Temple). You are also encouraged to "like" them on Facebook.
Have I mentioned this yet? So rare that one of Boston's jazz clubs notices klezmer, and here are the two most-frequently-performing local bands in one go. I'm very excited. It's on our calendar. On yours, yet?
"I would like to let you know about a big event that we are putting on next month. Ezekiel's Wheels is releasing their new album, Transported, and Klezwoods will be opening the program up for them @ The Regattabar on September 24th. They are making it the 1st Annual Regattabar Klezmer Music Festival!
We are doing a big push for this show as it's a particularly special event. This could be a good opportunity to bring in bigger acts in the future as well if this festival goes over well in its first year and would be huge for the Klezmer music community here in Boston. Here are all the exact details.
The Regattabar 1st Annual Klezmer Music Festival
September 24th, 2013
The Regattabar
1 Bennett St., Cambridge, MA
7pm
$20
Featuring Ezekiel's Wheels CD Release of Transported and Klezwoods
Now, this is exciting:
Festival of New Yiddish Song!
Monday, September 9, 7:00PM
Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street
Manhattan, NY
Tickets $15, $10 for CTMD/CJH/YIVO members—to purchase go to www.smarttix.com
A special concert celebrating the work of leading musicians and composers who are at the vanguard of developing a new canon of Yiddish song. Working through a transnational artistic network, these individuals are creating new music that is both rooted in tradition yet endowed with a contemporary expressive vision. This program features the North American debut of the extraordinary Berlin-based singer Sveta Kundish, who has been taking the European Yiddish world by storm, and new compositions by artists such as Patrick Farrell, Benjy Fox-Rosen and Michael Winograd as well as renowned Yiddish songwriter Josh Waletzky. Special guest: violinist Deborah Strauss. A reception with the artists will follow the concert.
Presented by the Center for Traditional Music and Dance's
An-sky Institute for Jewish Culture
This will probably be my last plug for this delightful local festival, but it's from their press release and worth noting:
There are two concerts on the program that no one has ever seen anywhere else, and which will probably never be repeated. Frank London, trumpeter and founding member of the Klezmatics, and Steven Bernstein, a great jazz trumpeter who's worked with The Lounge Lizards, will be appearing on the Yidstock bill as Brass Khazones. Yidstock will conclude with a massive jam session at the end of the weekend featuring the "Yidstock All-Stars," a group comprised of players from the weekend's bands, under the musical directorship of Frank London. Among those all-stars are two of the greatest clarinetists in klezmer: Ilene Stahl of Klezperanto and Margot Leverett of the Klezmer Mountain Boys.
There are some real goodies happening out in Amherst weekend after next. Here are some excerpts from the latest newsletter. Need I mention that we haven't seen Klezperanto live, anywhere, in years. To see them with Margot Leverett and her Klezmer Mountain Boys? Priceless:
Yidstock 2013: The Festival of New Yiddish Music
July 18 - 21, 2013 at the Yiddish Book Center
Amherst, MA
"There are two concerts on the program that no one has ever seen anywhere else, and which will probably never be repeated. Frank London, trumpeter and founding member of the Klezmatics, and Steven Bernstein, a great jazz trumpeter who's worked with The Lounge Lizards, will be appearing on the Yidstock bill as Brass Khazones. Yidstock will conclude with a massive jam session at the end of the weekend featuring the "Yidstock All-Stars," a group comprised of players from the weekend's bands, under the musical directorship of Frank London. Among those all-stars are two of the greatest clarinetists in klezmer: Ilene Stahl of Klezperanto and Margot Leverett of Klezmer Mountain Boys."
"To see the full schedule and to order tickets or a Festival Pass (a limited number are available) visit yiddishbookcenter.org/yidstock or call us at 413-256-4900."
Catching up still from the period when I was laid up (which means that you want to apply to this extraordinary program now, from Alan Bern:
It's my pleasure to let you know that the Yiddish Summer Weimar 2013 website is online and registration is now open: www.yiddishsummer.eu. This year's topic is New Yiddish Music, with Advanced and Intermediate workshops in Song, Dance and Instrumental music, as well as beginning through advanced Yiddish classes. For the first time in 2013, we're presenting a "festival-within-the-festival"—a week of two concerts each night followed by a Gala Dance Ball and the first ever Yiddish Summer Pool Party—yes you read that right! Workshop faculty includes Efim Chorny, Dan Kahn, Frank London, the Michael Winograd Trio, Sasha Lurje, Ilya Schneyveys, Steven Weintraub, Zev Feldman, Andreas Schmitges and more. Concerts include the Zmiros Trio, Dan Kahn & The Painted Bird, Forshpil, Semer Label Reloaded, Voices of Ashkenaz, AlpenKlezmer, Milena Kartowski, Schikker wi Lot, and more. Running from July 21 - August 11, Yiddish Summer 2013 is going to be incredible, and I hope you can join us for one or more weeks!
Warmest greetings to all from Alan Bern, Director, Yiddish Summer Weimar
A Biselle KlezKamp (a bit of KlezKamp)
Please join us for our next day-long, free event on July 21, 2013, 9am-9pm.
UW-Madison campus
Union South
1308 Langdon Street
Madison, WI
More info: call 608-890-4818 or visit mayrentinstitute.wisc.edu/
Music, dance, language, art, and cultural studies—plus age appropriate children's programming—are the lively core of this whirlwind 12-hour extravaganza of Eastern Euro pean / American Jewish life. A Biselle KlezKamp is the Midwest's premiere Yiddish event.
This year's program will be as rich as ever. Our world renowned staff will return with new and exciting offerings, and we've implemented suggestions from previous attendees to make this event even more responsive to the needs of all participants, veterans and newcomers alike.
If you've attended A Biselle KlezKamp before, come back to continue deepening your exploration of the bounties of traditional and popular Yiddish culture with our new workshops and lectures.
And if you've never joined us, what are you waiting for? Yiddish culture is a thousand years old, but it can't wait for you forever!
We'll be there. Will you? Join us!
Henry Sapoznik
Director, Mayrent Institute for Yiddish Culture
Roman Grinberg writes the Jewish-Music list:
European Jewish Choirs Festival
May 9 - 12, 2013
18 Jewish Choirs - over 400 singers from 16 European cities celebrating Jewish Song. Workshops for Yiddish, Yemenite and Chassidic songs led by European Choirmasters:
Gala concert with closing ceremony in the famous Austria Center Vienna on Sunday, May 12, starting 6 PM
Under the patronage of Austria Federal President Heinz Fischer
Main Sponsor: EJP - European Jewish Parliament www.ejp.eu
More info: www.wjchor.at
Well, after a whole week of film about various parts of the Klezmer Revival and new Jewish music, and a bang-up concert by So-Called last night, Yidstock ends today with an impressive series of shows starting with a sold-out Brian Bender brunch at 10am.
There are still tix available for the Hankus Netsky and Hebrew National Salvage show at noon (we'll certainly be there) with some recently discovered Yiddish gems. Then, for a change of pace the always-astounding Frank London's Klezmer Brass AllStars—with Eleanor Reissa are up at 2pm (It's true, we would have shlepped out to Amherst just for this.). The Festival finale, a concert with the Klezmatics at 4pm, is sold out (we settled for standing room only).
It's been a great weekend of music, from enjoying the Bang on a Can summer residency at Mass MoCA (North Adams) on Friday, to catching Arlo Guthrie and Family last night at Green River, to today. It will seem so mundane to end vacation and be back to work in the morning.
To mark its recent acquisition of the Henry Sapoznik Collection of historic Yiddish radio broadcasts from the 1920s through the 1950s, the AmericanFolklife Center at the Library of Congress will present a free public symposium on "The Stations That Spoke Your Language: Radio and the Yiddish-American Cultural Renaissance." Leading Yiddish language and culture experts will join media scholars and Library of Congress specialists to address various aspects of Yiddish-American radio, including its cultural impact and its continued legacy. The event, presented in collaboration with the Hebraic Section of the Library’s African and Middle Eastern Division, takes place September 6-7, 2012, at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.
The symposium is free of charge, but because of limited space registration is recommended. Both online registration and a more complete program will be available shortly. In the meantime, please mark your calendars!
For further information, contact: Dr. Nancy Groce, Senior Folklife Specialist, American Folklife Center; phone 202-707-1744.
From Araceli Tzigane:
I get in touch with you to let you know about the Gibraltar World Music Festival. Its first edition will be held on day 9th of July, inside the Saint Michael's Cave, in the Rock of Gibraltar. This edition is dedicated to "Sephardic Divas" and the artists that will play there are Sarah Aroeste, Mor Karbasi, Françoise Atlan, and Ofir.
If you want to see the poster, it is available here: http://ofirelviaje.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/gibraltar-world-music-festival-9th-of-july-with-ofir/
Registration is now open at the website for Yiddish Summer Weimar 2012 (July 21 - August 21). This summer's topic is "The bridges of Ashkenaz"—connections in song, instrumental music, dance and language between the Western European origins of Yiddish culture and its great flowering in Eastern Europe many centuries later. Whether you're a beginner, a pro, or somewhere in between, we invite you to join an incredible international community of artists, scholars and students from all walks of life. Check out the website for this year's exciting program of dance, music, song and more: www.yiddishsummer.eu
Warm greetings to all,
Alan Bern
From Jeff Warschauer to the Jewish Music list:
Come to the Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow this summer!
For several years now I've had the great privilege of teaching the Yiddish Song workshop at the festival in Krakow. We truly have a wonderful time, and you will make new friends from all over the world. Here's the description for this year:
Yiddish Song Workshop: Answering the Big Questions Through Yiddish Songs
We all confront the big questions: What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? What shall we have for Shabbes lunch? And Yiddish songs attempt to answer these kinds of questions, too! Each year, a wonderful, international community comes together in Krakow to sing, dance, learn and have fun. All are welcome, with no previous experience necessary. Join us!
Info on the whole festival: www.jewishfestival.pl/index,en.html
Press release from the Jewish Daily Forward:
In July of 2011, the Jewish media was abuzz with the news that JDub Records, the Jewish music label responsible for launching the careers of Matisyahu and Balkan Beat Box, was shutting down. Online forums were flooded with debates about what its failure meant for the future of New Jewish Culture. Was the Jewish philanthropic world abandoning New Jewish Culture?
On May 15, “Now What? The Future of New Jewish Culture” reignites the conversation. A unique town hall-style event, “Now What?” brings together ten experts of diverse backgrounds and experiences for a critical look at New Jewish Culture over the last ten years and the pressing issues it faces today, including changing attitudes towards American Jewish identity; waning support for quality Jewish art and culture; and strategies for cultivating Jewish art and culture in the future. This event is presented by the Posen Foundation U.S. through its new public programming initiative, Speakers’ Lab, and The Jewish Daily Forward. It is hosted by the 14th Street Y in downtown NYC.
After a decade of flourishing Jewish creativity, major Jewish cultural enterprises are being forced to scale back operations or close entirely. Using recent funding cuts as a springboard to examine the most pressing issues facing new Jewish arts and culture, “Now What?” addresses:
Panelists include: Jody Rosen, music critic for Slate Magazine; Alana Newhouse, Editor-in-Chief for Tablet Magazine; Elise Bernhardt, President and CEO of the Foundation for Jewish Culture; Dan Friedman, Arts & Culture Editor at The Jewish Daily Forward; and Stephen Hazan Arnoff, Executive Director at the 14th Street Y and LABA: The National Laboratory for New Jewish Culture.
Admission to “Now What? The Future of New Jewish Culture” is free. Seating is limited and pre-registration encouraged. Sign-up at www.speakerslab.org or by calling 212-564-6711 x 305.
Event and Venue Info:
The Theater at the 14th Street Y
344 East 14th Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues)
New York, NY 10003
May 15, 2012 7pm
Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival announces its 2012 season: “Cultural Collaborations” May 20-June 3
This year the Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival celebrates multi-cultural strands of Jewish music, from the African American influences of gospel and jazz to an interfaith Sephardic song cycle.
“Ayre”
featuring clarinetist David Krakauer with soprano Lara Bruckmann,
members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and guest artists
Sunday, May 20 7:30pm
Temple Emanuel of South Hills 1250 Bower Hill Rd.
Monday, May 21 7:30pm
Levy Hall, Rodef Shalom Congregation 4905 Fifth Ave.
Ayre – meaning "air" or "melody" in medieval Spanish – is an eclectic song cycle by Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov. Its multi-lingual texts intermingle three cultures (Christian, Arab and Jewish) as they co-existed in the late 15th-century. This “ecstatically beautiful piece” (New Yorker) blends elements like a Sephardic ballad, an Easter song, and a Sardinian protest song, into a theatrically moving work about religious harmony.
A diverse chamber ensemble features soprano Lara Bruckmann, members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and international clarinet superstar David Krakauer, returning for his third PJMF appearance. The program also includes “Der Heyser Bulgar” and Alexander Krein’s “Jewish Sketches” for clarinet and string quartet (with Krakauer) and a Sephardic work by Pittsburgh composer David Stock.
“Kosher Gospel”
with Joshua Nelson
and the Kosher Gospel Singers Thursday, May 31 7:30pm Temple Sinai 5505 Forbes Ave.
For Joshua Nelson, kosher gospel is a way to claim both parts of his identity as a Black Jew. For his audiences, whatever their faith or heritage, kosher gospel has been a revelation. Now in his early thirties, Nelson has performed around the world, for Presidents, with Aretha Franklin and the Klezmatics, and for Oprah, who named him the “Next Big Thing.” Whatever the venue, Joshua Nelson, the Prince of Kosher Gospel, brings people—and cultures—together in joyous song. Joshua is joined by his Kosher Gospel Singers and band.
“Swinging and Singing”
with the Ortner Roberts Duo
Zohar Chamber Singers, and HaZamir Pittsburgh Sunday, June 3 7:30pm
Agnes and Joseph Katz Performing Arts Center
JCC of Greater Pittsburgh 5738 Darlington Rd.
Pittsburgh’s favorite klezmer and jazz duo Tom Roberts (piano) and Susanne Ortner (clarinet) make their overdue PJMF debut paying tribute to both African American and Jewish musical legends like Scott Joplin, Louis Armstrong , Cab Calloway, and George Gershwin, whose multi-cultural collaborations influenced each other and thus elevated the art of jazz. Joining them in this unique program will be Pittsburgh jazz legend Roger Humphreys on drums and multi-instrumentalist Vince Giordano, known for recreating vintage scores for Woody Allen films and HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.
Our showcase of local talent also features the AJL’s HaZamir Pittsburgh high school ensemble and Zohar Chamber Singers, under the direction of Nizan Leibovich, performing choral works from a variety of genres and traditions.
TICKETS for all events $20 general admission, $15 seniors, $10 students
MORE INFORMATION at www.pjmf.net TICKETS available at www.proartstickets.org
(412) 394-3353
The Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival is co-sponsored by:
United Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, JCC of Greater Pittsburgh, Temple Emanuel of South Hills, Temple Sinai, Rodef Shalom Congregation, and the Agency for Jewish Learning.
STAGES de MUSIQUE et de CHANT– Été 2012
Musique juive d’Europe centrale
Klezmer Paris - 2012
du lundi 9 au vendredi 13 juillet
Stage destiné essentiellement aux professionnels, semi-professionnels, musiciens, et chanteurs de bon niveau, sous la direction d’artistes de renommée internationale.
More: yiddishweb.com
Last Sunday night I was one of the judges at the Boston Jewish Music Festival's "Klezmer Idol" (more about which, anon). So much fun was had, that Fred Ledley, of Shpilkes Klezmer, is interest in helping to organizae a similar contest at the Worcester, MA JCC:
We are working with the Worcester JCC to organize a “Battle of the Klezmer Bands” at the Worcester JCC around Chanukah 2012—date to be announced. This will be similar to last [Sunday] night's Klemer Idol at Ryles (which was awesome).
We are looking for amateur bands that would like to participate in an afternoon or evening event.
This will be a high energy, friendly “competition,” where everyone wins by being part of an evening of great music with a wonderful audience and the camaraderie of other Klezmorim.
Would it be possible to post or send a call-out to bands that might be interested. I know the local bands, but there must also be bands in central/west MA and surrounding areas.
Fred Ledley
Shpilkes Klezmer Band
E-mail Shpilkes
Have you ever wanted to sing your little one to sleep with a sweet Yiddish lullaby?
Join Lorin Sklamberg, vocalist of the Grammy Award-winning band the Klezmatics for a 4-week exploration into the world of Yiddish children's songs—songs of the cradle and home life, kheyder and nature.
Lullabies and Legacy with Lorin Sklamberg
Presented by The Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring
Tuesdays, February 7th - 28th from 12:00-1:30pm
Become a part of the tradition of passing this legacy on to your children, grandchildren, even your friends' children. Teachers, babysitters, friends - and lovers of Yiddish song are welcome, too.
For reservations call: 212-889-6800 x234 or email Workmen's Circle
www.circle.org/comeintothecircle.html
If there is music I love being played somewhere in Boston, the odds are that Michael McLaughlin, of Shirim, Naftule's Dream, KlezWoods, and too many other ensembles, is behind it. So, when he suggests that we might all want to attend this upcoming event, I listen attentively and make plans to be there:
SqueezeBox Slam: Including the Big Stroll & Concert
Saturday, September 17 · 12:00pm - 3:00pm
Be part of the Boston area's first accordion & concertina festival on Sept. 17th! Squeezebox players of all shapes, sizes and musical interests are invited to come to Somerville and play/stroll/set up camp in the city's public spaces and parks from 12-3. No jury, no curation, kind of a flash mob for musicians. We are calling it "The Big Stroll". Then from 3-6 we will be hosting a free concert in Union Square as part of ArtsUnion. Produced by ARTSomerville, the Nave Gallery, and Michael McLaughlin. Made possible because of the awesome support of the Somerville Arts Council.
The Concert at Union Square goes from 3-6.
More information about the event, including parking, logistics, etc, can be found via Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=245570485470802
KlezCalifornia's TENTH Yiddish Culture Festival, at JCC San Francisco, President's Day Weekend, February 18-20, 2012! Headlining will be Klez-X, with Daniel Hoffman returning to the Bay Area from Israel, and bringing together Sheldon Brown, Alan Hall, Jeanette Lewicki, Richard Saunders, Stephen Saxon, and Charlie Seavey. Expect a hot klezmer concert on Saturday, February 18, 8:00pm, followed by a klezmer dance party. The best concert tickets are available right now at jccsf.org/arts. Mark your calendar! Invite friends and family to visit for the latest, great weekend celebrating Yiddish in the Bay Area. Lomir aleh freylekh zayn! (Let's have a wonderful time!)
Now, help us plan the Festival:
We encourage you to email us to suggest Festival workshops. Here are workshops we offered at our February 2010 Festival in Palo Alto: For all: Jewish Music Beyond Jewish Life, Yiddish Literature in Translation (2010: Yiddish Epitaphs, Monologues), History of Yiddish Language and Literature, Acting, Papercutting, Amulets, Klezmer/Balkan/Roma Connections, 110 Yiddish Words the Average Puerto Rican New Yorker Knows and You Should be Ashamed if You Don't, World of Our Great-Grandparents, Shared Melodic Repertory of the Yiddish and Greek Worlds, Growing Up With Yiddish, Yiddish Words and Expressions for the 21st Century, Yiddish Film. For singers: Yiddish Love Songs, Yiddish Song Rarities, Master Classes, Sing-Alongs. For dancers: Learn Klezmer Dances, How to Lead Klezmer Dance, Dance Parties. For instrumentalists: Master Classes, Ensembles, Make Them Dance, Klezmer Style/Technique: Melody or Accompaniment, Composing and Improvising, and Klezmer Theory. Want the same? Different workshops? Send us your ideas!
From the Boston Jewish Music Festival. Need I say that Judy and I will be there, for sure? This is a not miss!:
Join Us For An Exciting Evening of Music With Great Israeli Band Shabate at Johnny D's in Somerville, Wed.,
July 27th
BJMF Benefit Concert at Johnny D's
The Boston Jewish Music Festival
DATE: Wednesday, July 27, 2011
TIME: Music at 8:30 and 10 PM
LOCATION: Johnny D's
17 Holland Street (Davis Square)
Somerville MA
Tickets: $15 in advance, $20 at the door (cash only)
Buy Advance Tickets by clicking HERE
or call 617.776.2004
Pour la première fois en résidence dans une magnifique demeure du XIXe siècle située à 17 kilomètres de Limoges, un lieu idyllique accueillera notre stage de chansons yiddish : le château de Ligoure
Du dimanche 21 au samedi 27 août 2011
Informations pratiques, formulaires d’inscription également disponibles sur le site www.yiddishweb.com, auprès d'Estelle au 01 47 00 14 00
Continue reading "Stage de chant yiddish ... en Limousin NOUVEAU ! 21-27 August, 2011" »
Welcome to Yiddish Summer Weimar 2011, July 6 - August 14!
2011 special topic: Ashkenaz, the matrix of Yiddish and German cultures.
From its 10th century origins in the Rhineland through its great flourishing in Eastern Europe and the New World, from its near annihilation in the Holocaust to its surprising international resurgence in the last 30 years, Yiddish culture has been profoundly influenced by German culture. This year, many of our workshops, concerts and other public events explore this special relationship with the help of colleagues from German folk music and dance.
Innovative, intensive workshops in klezmer music, Yiddish song, dance, language and culture for students at every level, from beginners through professionals, taught by teams of the best artists, teachers and scholars in the world
The Mayrent Institute for Yiddish Culture at the University of Wisconsin–Madison proudly announces the first annual Madison KlezKamp to be held July 10–14, 2011 on the campus of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Like its parent event, "KlezKamp: The Yiddish Folk Arts Program," which has defined proactive and innovative Yiddish cultural continuity since 1985, Madison KlezKamp will offer the same exciting, challenging classes on klezmer music, Yiddish language, cultural and linguistic history, vocal arts, dance, crafts, and children's program. All will be taught by some of the world's greatest exponents of Yiddish culture, including: Aaron Alexander (drums), Adrian Banner (piano), Daniel Blacksberg (trombone) Joanne Borts (singing), Sarah Gordon (KlezKids), Josh Horowitz (accordion), Miriam Isaacs (Yiddish), Susan Leviton (singing/crafts), Mark Louden (Yiddish), Sherry Mayrent (clarinet), John Mysliwiec (chorus), Mark Rubin (tuba/bass), Henry Sapoznik (tenor banjo/Yiddish culture), Cookie Segelstein (fiddle), Steve Weintraub (dance), Michael Wex (Yiddish) and Michael Winograd (clarinet).
Tuition: $750 (adults), $300 (children ages 5–12). Program includes all lunches and dinners; accommodations are not included. A limited number of work/study scholarship discounts are available.
For more information about the Madison KlezKamp program and schedule, local hotel options, and to register online, please visit mayrentinstitute.wisc.edu.
To receive print brochures contact us at Mayrent Institute or call (608) 263-1936.
And save the date! Our 27th Annual KlezKamp: The Yiddish FolkArts Program will be held December 25–30th, 2011 in Kerhonkson, New York.
DOVID BOTWINIK AF DER RADIO-PROGRAM "DOS YIDISHE KOL" - 30 Marts 2011
7:30 in Ovnt - Af WUNR 1600 AM un yiddishvoice.com
Dem mitvokh, dem 30stn Marts 2011, 7:30 ovnt, vet men hern ba der radio-program "Dos Yidishe Kol" (WUNR 1600-AM, Boston) an intervyu (af yidish) mit Dovid Botwinik vegn zayn lebn un shafn, vegn zayn muzik, un spetsyel vegn dem aroyskum fun bukh "Fun Khurbn Tsum Lebn: Naye Yidishe Lider" ("From Holocaust to Life: New Yiddish Songs"). Dovid Botwinik iz geborn gevorn in Vilne. Nokh dem vos er hot durkhgemakht di tsveyte velt-milkhome, hot er shtudirt muzik in Roym, un hot zikh bazetst in Montreal, vu er iz a profesyoneler muziker. In bukh prezentirt er zayn lebns shafung: 56 originele lider zayne. Me vet oykh hern in program Botwiniks muzik, gezungen un geshpilt fun farsheydene zinger un muziker. Nokh vayterdike informatsye vegn Dovid Botwinikn vendt zikh tsum vebzaytl zayns: www.botwinikmusic.com.
"Dos yidishe kol" iz di vekhntlekhe bostoner yidishe radio-program vos vert transmitirt ale mitvokh 7:30-8:30 ovnt un eyntsaytik durkhn vebzaytl www.yiddishvoice.com. Khapt a kuk afn vebzaytl oder shtelt zikh in farbindung elektronish afn adres oder telefonish mitn numer 617/730-8484, nokh vayterdiker informatsye vegn der program.
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DAVID BOTWINIK ON THE "YIDDISH VOICE" - March 30, 2011
7:30 PM - On WUNR 1600 AM and yiddishvoice.com
This Wednesday, March 30, 2011, at 7:30 PM, the "Yiddish Voice" radio program (WUNR 1600-AM, Boston) will feature an interview (in Yiddish) with David Botwinik about his life and work, about his music, and especially about the publication of his new book "From Holocaust to Life: New Yiddish Songs" ("Fun Khurbn Tsum Lebn: Naye Yidishe Lider"). David Botwinik was born in Vilna. After surviving the war, he studied music in Rome and later settled in Montreal, where he's since worked as a professional musician. The book presents his life's work: 56 original songs. Listeners will hear not only about the book, but will also get to hear Botwinik's music, sung and played by various singers and musicians. For further info on David Botwinik visit: www.botwinikmusic.com.
'The Yiddish Voice' (dos yidishe kol), Boston's weekly Yiddish-language radio show, is heard on WUNR 1600 AM every Wednesday evening from 7:30 PM to 8:30 PM and live-streamed on the Internet at www.yiddishvoice.com. For more information, visit www.yiddishvoice.com, email us, or call 617-730-8484.
If this month features the Alberqueque "KlezmerquerQue", then next month we get to the letter "B" and both Berkeley and Boston have their festivals. This year's Boston Festival has a diverse, dynamite lineup, and it's local, so I got to go have lunch this week and hear Jim Ball and Joey Baron tell us about it. I'm psyched.
What I find most interesting is how much the Boston Festival is tied into the area's synagogues. In most communities, most of the outreach of an event like this is to unaffiiliated Jews. Here, I would guess that it's the opposite. Both support and publicity seem to focus on each synagogue and minyan in the area. One place where that attitude is exemplified is the tie-ins to the Frank London-led event, "Divine Sparks," at Berklee performance center on Mar 12. This is an exciting, avant-garde approach to hazonos as exemplified by Frank's work with Cantor Jack Mendelson and others on his CDs, Hazónos (2005) and Invocations (2000). But this festival doesn't stop there. The Friday night prior to the event, at services in four Boston-area shuls, you can listen to the visitoring cantor who will star in that event, of your choice. Not bad.
Check out the Festival calendar, now online, and start picking up tix asap. No telling what's going to sell out how quickly, but from Cantorial to Klezmer to Sephardic music to hip hop or a capella music, there's a lot going on. Check it out at bostonjewishmusicfestival.org. See you there.
Even if I wasn't already a fan of the event, I gotta say that any event that features Yosl Kurland, Christina Crowder, and Margot Leverett is a treat.
February 18-20 (FRI-SUN over Presidents Day weekend): The 9th Annual KlezmerQuerque is Albuquerque New Mexico's 3-day festival of concerts, services, workshops and dance parties featuring ‘Klezmer’—the exciting traditional dance & music of the Eastern European Jewish people. The festival, which is produced by Congregation Nahalat Shalom, its 25-piece intergenerational Community Klezmer Band & Rikud Yiddish dance troupe, presents a wide variety of events for everyone with prices ranging from FREE to $20 per event and an ALL-EVENT early registration discount of $85-general / $70-senior, students or fixed income.
KlezmerQuerque 2011 welcomes three renowned klezmer artists & scholars who hail from New York City and New England: Joe “Yosl” Kurland (Yiddish language, song, dance & fidl - PLUS Shabbes nusach in loshn koydesh), Christina Crowder (accordion & Fulbright scholar specializing in Romanian-Jewish ethno-studies), AND the return of our dear friend the klezmer clarinet virtuoso Margot Leverett. Events include Der Freylekher Shabbes on Friday, Saturday morning learner's Shabbos service, Beginning Yiddish, SAT nite Concert & Dance, 3 music/dance sessions from 10am-5pm on Sunday, and a Lunch 'n Learn. Visit Nahalat Shalom's web site www.nahalatshalom.org for full schedule & event details, performer bios/photos, registration form, flyer and more!!
For further info, call 505-243-6276 or email Beth Cohen.
Announcing the New York premier screenings of The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground. January 13 and 17, Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center. Part of the New York Jewish Film Festival.
The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground
Germany/Hungary/Israel/Poland/USA, 2010; 106m
Director Erik Greenberg Anjou (A Cantor’s Tale, 2006) returns with this high-energy documentary about the Grammy Award-winning, New York-based Yiddish roots band, The Klezmatics. Live performances are mixed with soulful interviews with band members as well as other performers including Joshua Nelson, Chava Alberstein and Theodore Bikel. Anjou and crew followed the Klezmatics for over four years capturing the band’s highs, lows, and relentless march forward.
www.filmlinc.com/wrt/onsale/nyjff/theklezmaticsonholyground.html
The festival that introduced me to the Klezmatics, Brave Old World, Bukharin music, and so much more is back for it's 26th year. This year they are following the Boston Jewish Music Festival (or vice versa) in presenting Idan Raichel alum Ravid Kahalani, presenting "Yemen Blues." There is also an evening of music from the famed, and too-seldom-heard St. Petersburg Society for Jewish Folk Music pieces played by violin virtuoso Noah Bendix-Bagley. That scratches the surface. Read more at the festival website, www.jewishmusicfestival.org.
Now, if the Boston Jewish Music Festival, which will be held over two weeks in 2011 from Mar 6-20 would get its own schedule up so I can start bragging on our local cats…. It's coming soon, and it, too, will be a great schedule.
Okay, it's true that they use the Germanic spelling of "shmooze" rather than a usual Yiddish transliteration, but the conference, itself, seems to be well-attended and well-thought-of, however much a confusion of Yiddish and German transliteration/spelling is considered a cultural statement somewhat antithetical to promoting Jewish culture in my own household:
Don’t miss cutting edge conversations about Jewish culture as great performers such as Achinoam Nini (Noa), The Klezmatics, Joshua Nelson, Judy Gold, Rami Kleinstein and Keynote David Broza gather together for the 5th annual Schmooze 11 the International Jewish Presenters Association Jewish culture conference. in New York City on January 11 & 12, 2011 at City Winery.
Schmooze 11:The 5th annual IJPA Schmooze Jewish Culture Conference is a South By Southwest must attend event for the Jewish arts and culture/entertainment community. The Schmooze conference gathers leaders from cultural art centers, theater producers, agents, musicians, filmmakers, academics and others for two days of packed programming, stimulating panels, and dynamic debate on the 21st century Jewish cultural renaissance. This year we offer the first Cultural Luncheon, our IJPA fundraiser, featuring a pairing of 7 tastes of culture, with 7 of NY's top kosher chefs and 7 wines. We hope you can come join us for the festivities and, of course, the schmoozing.
We are especially excited about the musical acts that have joined the bill for the nights of the conference. The first fifty people that sign up to attend the Schmooze conference will get a three-night pass to the Oyhoo Music Festival happening the nights of January 11th, and 12th with a bonus show on the 10th. Keynotes include Debbie Friedman and shows will include Achinoam Nini "Noa" on January 10th, Good for the Jews & The Klezmatics with Joshua Nelson on January 11th, and Isramerica on January 12th.
Sign up by January 5th. For more information email David Frankin or call 917-362-9013
This rather delightful concert by Rhode Island veteran Fishel Bresler may have slipped through the cracks. On a day when just about nothing is open, and there is nothing to eat but Chinese Food (and many of us fulfilled that mitzvah last night already), check it out. If you are instead, in NYC, don't forget to check out Tzadik's "Radical Jewish Music Fest; in Chicago it's Jewmongous. Enjoy.
Fishel Bresler's Klezmer Hassidic Ensemble
Sat 7:30 PM, December 25th
Cong Ohawe Shalom
671 East Ave, corner of Glenwood
Pawtucket, RI
$10 for adults, $7 for (quiet) children under b-mitzvah
Refreshments for sale. Plenty free parking.
Lively & Moving Music, world class musicians, a comfortable environment, a little humor thrown in.
Funded in part by a Folk Arts Fellowship grant from the RI State Council on the Arts.
It has long been a sad saying of mine that I have been useless at finding actual local gigs for friends who make wonderful music. This past fall, however, I helped get The Other Europeans to Somerville. On Saturday night, we serve a different form of excellent Jewish by hosting Toronto ethnomusicologist and frequent KlezmerShack contributor Judith Cohen at our home. Please join us in welcoming her in her first post 9/11 Boston-area appearance:
Judith Cohen ~ Sephardic Song
Saturday, December 18 · 7:30pm Newton, MA
Canadian ethnomusicologist Judith Cohen offers a wide-ranging repertoire of Jewish song, mixed with the stories behind the songs from her decades of field research in Spain,Portugal, and around the world.
This is a house concert. Light kosher refreshments will be provided. For address info, email Ari Davidow. Shuttle to/from Chestnut Hill T stop available.
Lancement du IXème Festival Jazz'N'Klezmer à partir du 21 novembre 2010.
This started last week and I missed it. There is an amazing line-up throughout December, though, including David Krakauer on Dec 13. Check it out!
Hankus Netsky has been stretching the repertoire available in the Klezmer world for quite some time. He has also been doing more work with fellow jazz musician Linda Chase and friends. Tonight we'll get a chance to enjoy the best of both of those worlds at Newton's Temple Reyim. Show is at 8pm and the details, of course, can be found on the KlezmerShack Calendar.
KlezKamp 2010 will be held December 26-31, 2010 at the Hudson
Valley Resort and Spa in New York's Catskills Mountains.
"Our theme this year, Gilgulim/Transmigrations, celebrates not only the diverse and dynamic history of Yiddish culture on the move, but also Living Traditions' "transmigration" into the Mayrent Institute for Yiddish Culture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Please check out our online registration. Or, if you are not on our mailing list and would prefer a good old-fashioned in-your-mailbox registration brochure, drop us a line or call our office at (212) 532-8202 with your name and address. Please hurry, though: space is limited and we are already swamped with many more requests than we have seen in a number of years.
It is also our great pleasure to announce the upcoming release of The Tradition Lives: Yiddish-Moldavian Music of German Goldenshteyn. Recorded at last year's KlezKamp, the new CD has material our late and beloved teacher and friend German Goldenshteyn chose for his first recording and for a proposed Volume II, and honors the great music and inspired playing he shared with us.
As with our other LT CDs, we look for support from our KlezKamp community to issue this critically important recording. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation for the production and release of this CD in time for this year's KlezKamp. Donations are tax-deductible and can be made by check to Living Traditions Inc. or online with a credit card. All donors will be listed in the record notes and, as with our previous German Goldenshteyn CD and books, a percentage of the profits are shared with the Goldenshteyn family.
I woke up this morning realizing that I am just a bit over a week from KlezKanada. The approach has been manifesting itself in several ways—earlier this week, for instance, I was planning my get together with friends at a houseparty in Maine. "Looking forward to klezmer" wrote my friend. For a moment, I was in a panic since we were about to hear a singer-songwriter of the Grateful Dead persuasion with no connection to Jewish music (other than personal ancestry). Then I remembered that we were all meeting up soon--him, his wife, his song, and his inlaws. It isn't such a stretch when you consider that KlezKanada alumni Shtreiml played my friend's Montreal wedding.
This is going to be an incredibly exciting KlezKanada. Not only will I be there doing the usual daily Yiddish/English/other-languages-as-present newsletter, but the entire "Other Europeans" ensemble will be teaching—a unique opportunity to learn older European klezmer traditions, but also lautari (Roma musicians) traditions. There will be a host of other incredible music workshops, along with some very exciting lectures and presentations. Consider this, then, your last opportunity to register, and come visit with us in a little over a week, in beautiful Camp Bnai Brith in the Laurentians, just north of Montreal.
Register online now for KlezKanada 2010!
August 16th to 22nd
Those of us (and the house was pretty full, so it wasn't a small crowd filling out the National Yiddish Book Center's new auditorium--I'd give you the donors' names, but the new NYBC website seems particularly opaque on such details) who attended the Amherst debut of Hankus Netsky's new band, "Branches" on Monday night had a subversively pleasant evening.
"Branches," includes Hankus on piano (Klezmer Conservatory Band founder and, as Dr. Netsky, head of the NYBC's "Discovery" Project), KCB regulars Andy Blickenderfer on bass, cello, and banjo; and Yaeko Mirando Elmaleh on violin; along with Hankus' jazz ensemble, "Another Realm" co-conspirator Linda Jaye Chase on flute and bass clarinet; and Hebrew College cantorial student Jessica Kate Meyer on vocals, harmonium, and percussion. You couldn't ask for a much more professional, tighter sounder group of folks for a pleasant evening in Amherst. Augmenting everything was the core of NYBC interns (and audience members) who took advantage of the floor space to indulge in "Yiddish" (Eastern European Jewish) folk dancing. The group started off with some traditional klezmer, but it quickly became clear that this was traditional music, but not the old same repertoire. Instead, Hankus mixed in pieces that he had gathered as part of the Center's "Discovery" project, as well as less-well-known pieces by that generation of Second Avenue songsters who had drawn on traditional music and made it American. We got to hear wonderful music that sounded familiar, but was still new to most of us.
Once the audience was warmed up, Hankus moved farther afield, including pieces from "Another Realm," including two wonderful pieces by flautist Linda Chase, one inspired by a poem by Itzik Manger, read simultaneously in Yiddish and English by Netsky and Chase; and another inspired by an earlier poem by the Sufi mystic Rumi. Again from "Another Realm" (I think—I forgot to check) was a new middle eastern piece by Hankus. Closing out, the ensemble returned to the familiar-sounding Yiddish and klezmer. As they played, my audience companions would turn to each other and to me, smiling that "this is hot shit" smile.
What made the concert special wasn't just wonderful music wonderfully played—it was the way that Hankus continues to broaden the repertoire of traditional music, expanding ears, and in a way, legitimizing further the boundary-pushing music of a younger generation of musicians such as The Lithuanian Empire or Daniel Kahn & Painted Bird. It's not a static canon, nor does the music come from a tradition that is disappearing—at least, not disappearing yet, and if the musicians or Monday night's audience have anything to say about it, clearly not disappearing anytime soon.
Tonight, of course, is the East Coast premiere of the new Veretski Pass piece, "Klezmer Shul," as suitable to close the festival as "Branches" was to open the festival—the one to open by showing that the culture that the Center has preserved is alive and well; and tonight to seal a future is even more open-ended and exciting than we imagined a few days ago. חזק חזק ונתחדש!
One of the most special New England events occurs not during the Fall leaf-gawking season, but in mid-July—starting today, in fact—when the National Yiddish Book Center opens its annual "Paper Bridge" festival, a week-long celebration of Yiddishkeit with lectures, workshops, film screenings, and of course, Jewish music new and old.
This year features two special exhibits, Mayer Kirshenblatt's paintings in a traveling exhibit titled: "They Call Me Mayer July" (so what more appropriate month!??). I am a major fan of the exhibit, and of his pictures, which capture life in pre-Holocaust Poland in a way that is both sweet and yet eschews the shmalzification of the period. Kirshenblatt's exhibit is balanced by a look at "Esn! Jews and Food in America. It's a hard combo to beat. [Off-topic, I note that the Jewish Women's Archive, where I work, has recently begun featuring regular guest blogs—is that an oxymoron?—on food and new kosher recipes. Yummy!
What matters most to KlezmerShack readers, of course, is that there will be music. Amazing music. New music. Tomorrow night I expect to trek out for Hankus Netsky's new ensemble, Branches, "… that uses Jewish musical tradition as a point of departure for creative exploration, performing repertoire drawn from klezmer, Yiddish theater, and cantorial traditions, along with new compositions and improvisations based on Yiddish poetry and other sources."
Tuesday night is a re-interpretation "The Firebird." Double Edge Theatre's interpretation of the classic Russian tale draws from the work of Mark Chagall and uses both the indoor and outdoor spaces of the Book Center to transport the audience into the imagination of the famous painter. This is followed on Wednesday night by two documentaries, "The Peretzniks" and "Paint what you remember," the latter featuring Mayer Kirshenblatt talking about his work and pre-war Poland.
The finale, and another absolutely-must-see evening is the East Coast premiere of Veretski Pass's new piece, "The Klezmer Shul." "Inspired by the synagogues of pre-war Eastern Europe, The Klezmer Shul is rooted in Jewish liturgical melodic principles and emotionals intonations. This four-movement instrumental suite transmits the emotional power of synagogue singing without the use of words, incorporating elements of jazz, avant-garde, classical, klezmer, and folk music." If you are familiar with the ways in which Veretski Pass has revitalized early European klezmer music, you wouldn't dream of missing this. As for me, having heard bits and pieces of the piece in formation, I have my tickets at the ready.
The Paper Bridge festival includes more than just evening concerts. There are workshops, film-screenings, and tours during the day. If, like much of New England, you are spending some time in the Berkshires (or nearby) to escape the current heat wave, this is the week to spend a bit to the East in Amherst. The rest of us, still at work during the day, will simply face a longer commute than usual ;-).
National Yiddish Book Center
1021 West Street
Amherst, MA
www.yiddishbookcenter.org
This past Sunday I found myself in New York City. I did the obvious and caught Adrienne Cooper and Marilyn Lerner at the City Winery brunch, way off on the West Side of town where I hadn't been since visiting a college friend at her father's print shop--Varick Street was once the center of printing in Manhattan.
Not only did I run into several friends, but the music was superb. The repertoire was a varied as one would hope for—older, less-well-known Yiddish songs, new ones, and a taste of Cooper and Lerner's settings of the poetry of Anna Margolin. I could listen to Adrienne Cooper sing for hours and days. I have to say likewise for listening to the improvisational piano playing of Marilyn Lerner, here extending from the instrumental music recorded on her most recent Jewish music CD, Roumanian Fantasy, to her incredible interplay with Cooper. Watching them both was a treat.
Brunch at City Winery is a major step up from the tiny old Tonic (which wasn't even offering food in the last years of its Sunday brunch series). The space is huge, and clean, and the waitstaff are attentive. But, I gotta say that Sunday brunch needs to feature food that is better than "okay." It is not painful to eat there, and the coffee is good, but I can't imagine anyone waking up and saying, "I can't wait to eat at the City Winery again, and boy, wouldn't it be great to take the family out and listen to XXX." For the music, you can't do better. But for the food, you'll always be thinking, "couldn't I be eating someplace else?"
I was sorely tempted to stay in NYC to catch Mycale that night, and really, really wanted to hear Greg Wall's Ain Sof Arkestra Monday night. Too bad on my part, as Greg writes:
The Ayn Sof Arkestra and Bigger Band played Monday night to a packed house and kicked hard! The Jewish Week wrote a nice preview and that helped. Interesting mix of folks in the audience—young, older, secular, frummies, and a bunch of musicians as well.
My consolation? I was back here in time to attend the first gig by the KlezWoods at Johnny D's. I've written about this band a few times—usually I see them at Atwoods Tavern in Cambridge at one of their Sunday night gigs. Dana Westover, who has a great Sunday afternoon world folk show on WUMB interviewed them last week, and got them this gig. It was smoking. If ever there was a band ready to be playing to people who are actually paying attention and are ready to dance, it's KlezWoods.
There were 10 people on stage, including Grant Smith, drummer for the Klezmer Conservatory Band and a wide range of projects including balkan and other world music; and Michael McLaughlin—Dr. McLaughlin to most of us—who plays accordion and keyboards for Shirim, Naftule's Dream, and some wonderful avant garde-ish bands. Joe Kessler, the band instigator was there hopping around and playing his battered electric teal violin. There was electric guitar and stand-up bass and trombone and trumpet and Becky Wexler on clarinet, Alex Spiegelman (sp?) on sax, all playing this wonderful soup of klezmer/balkan/funk/jam band music that was so perfect for dancing that you had people bopping around in usual north american style on stage while others were carefully weaving a line of Balkan steps.
'Nuff said. The band has a CD out in a couple of months. It may or may not be great. They appear around town. Time to catch them live.
And finally, the week not being over yet, I expect to see the same faces at the Lily Pad, in Inman Square, on Saturday night at 10pm when Ezekiel's Wheels hold forth. Big fun expected.
Jewish Women's Music Festival
Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center
Falls Village CT
August 2-8, 2010
The festival will feature classes with renowned artists, and workshops in song sharing, writing a spiritual song, song and ritual, using chant, drumming, leadership of an audience/reading an audience, choral leadership and a cappella performance (among others). Opportunities to jam will abound and every night there will be a performance as well as open mic opportunities. In the Elat Chayyim tradition, Shabbat will be the central part of the festival.
The festival culminates in a public performance at Isabella Freedman on Sunday, August 8th with featured performers including Vocolot, Rakia and Yofiah.
For further info: isabellafreedman.org/womensmusic
To register: thriva.activenetwork.com
N'attendez plus pour vous inscrire !
STAGE de MUSIQUE INSTRUMENTALE
STAGE de CHANT YIDDISH
STAGE de DANSES TRADITIONNELLES
STAGE pour ENFANTS et JUNIORS
Du 5 au 9 juillet 2010
Pour la huitième année consécutive, ces quatre cursus parallèles et intensifs s’adressent aux intéressés de tous âges, du niveau intermédiaire au niveau professionnel. De nombreuses passerelles permettent à chacun de découvrir l’étendue de ce folklore particulièrement riche ou de parfaire ses connaissances (cours dispensés en français et en anglais).
Au programme : ateliers, conférences, master classes, jams, spectacles ... certaines animations seront ouvertes au grand public. Et pour les juniors de 7 à 17 ans, un projet pluridisciplinaire : « le grand cirque klezmer »…
Informations et inscriptions auprès d'Estelle au 01 47 00 14 00 ou par e-mail
RENSEIGNEMENTS ET RESERVATIONS
Maison de la culture yiddish – Bibliothèque Medem
18, passage Saint-Pierre Amelot F - 75011 PARIS
Tél. : + 33 1 47 00 14 00 / fax : + 33 1 47 00 14 47
Métro : Oberkampf (lignes 5 et 9), Richard Lenoir (ligne 5), Filles du Calvaire (ligne 8)
Bus : 56 et 96 (arrêt : Oberkampf), 20 et 65 (arrêt : Saint-Sébastien Froissart)
www.yiddishweb.com
I have been remiss in posting this, but for the first time I can claim to have played a useful role in bringing a concert to the Boston area. If it had to be a first time, this is definitely the group to bring.
The Other Europeans is an amazing project fusing Lautari and klezmorim, playing amazing traditional music and very new, very powerful fusion. The band will be at Johnny D's, my favorite spot for dance music, on Tuesday, August 31. Anything people can do to help bring a crowd will be appreciated. Please help us get the word out. If they don't play to a packed house, it won't be nearly as much fun (and boy will it be hard to bring them back, or bring the next unknown band this exciting).
You can help. Download a flyer and post it. Share it with friends.
Spend an incredible week July 7 - 14, 2010 as a part of the Klezkamp Roadshow at the Block and Hexter Vacation Center in Northeastern, PA. The famous KlezKamp program of Yiddish music, dance, arts and language returns to BHVC for a week of lectures, participation, and performances.
Featuring:
Associated Camps, Inc., Block and Hexter Vacation Center
1-800-400-1924 / fax: 973-276-3188
Poyntelle, PA
www.bhvc.org
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By way of announcing the next festival, the festival has presented clips from the 2nd Annual Festival:
3er. Edicion de EMMKA
Encuentro Mundial de Musica Klezmer en Argentina
Klezfiesta 2010
Octubre/Noviembre 2010
Klezmer en el Bicentenario
Klezmer on the 200th birthday of Argentina
Summer Klezmer music workshop from July 25 to August 1, 2010.
250 km around Paris (France) near Le Mans. Open to non-professional musicians with fairly to very good level.
Group rehearsal, improvisation and with sheet music. Concert
in the near village at the end of the week.
Cost 550 € (food, lodging and music courses).
All details on our web site www.musique-ensemble.com
Alan Bern announces the Yiddish Summer Weimar program, with several week-long workshops running from July 4 through Aug 2, 2010:
The website for Yiddish Summer Weimar 2010 is now online:
Celebrating our 10th anniversary, this summer's overall topic is yidishkayt. The advanced vocal workshop topic is unaccompanied Yiddish folksong repertoire & style, led by Michael Alpert, Ethel Raim and Itzik Gottesman. The advanced klezmer workshop topic is non-dance repertoire & style, led by Zev Feldman, Josh Horowitz, Cookie Siegelstein, Stu Brotman, Steven Greenman, Michael Winograd, and others. We'll also conduct a 3-day seminar for professional Yiddish dance teachers & musicians led by Zev, Sue Foy, Christian Dawid and Jake Shulman-Ment, aimed at developing a unified dance/dance music culture based on the more gestural style of dancing practiced by Zev. For more information about these workshops and others, I invite you to check out the website. Best wishes to all, Alan Bern
Amsterdam will once again host the world's most exciting and innovative Jewish Music Festival: October 28-31, 2010. In addition to our unique competition, you can enjoy workshops, master classes, jam sessions, and the Jewish cultural marketplace.
Details as they are available: www.ijmf.org. You can also sign up for the organization's mailing list.
If you are anywhere in the Southwest, you must make your way to Albuequerque weekend after next to join Jeff Warschauer and Deborah Strauss and a stellar class of local and imported teachers and musicians at the 12th Annual "KlezmerQuerque" (my all-time favorite festival name). Find out more at the Cong. Nahalat Shalom website: nahalatshalom.org.
On the other hand, if you are California Dreamin', what could be better than checking out the new Veretski Pass "The Klezmer Shul" on Feb 14 as part of the grand KlezCalifornia extravaganza which runs from Feb 12-15. Questions? 415.789.7679.
www.klezcalifornia.org
This is a very rare public performance by one of the most wonderful klezmer violinists out there. If you're in the area, it's worth stopping by!
You're invited!
Sandra Layman will be performing with the Seattle Jewish Chorale and Kesselgarden at a free event on Sunday afternoon, November 29, between 2:00 and 5:00 pm, Barnes and Noble bookstore at University Village, NE Seattle.
It's a "pre-Hanukkah" event, with beautiful choral singing (including a lovely song for women's voices with violin), interludes of rousing klezmer music, and Hanukkah sing-alongs. Drop by, and bring the kids!
It's finally available -- at a special low price for the holiday gift-giving season -- the downloadable (MP3) version of my CD, "Little Blackbird"! Preview and buy it at: Little Blackbird
25th Anniversary
A Fertl Yurhundert KlezKamp
KlezKamp: The Yiddish Folk Arts Program
December 23-29, 2009/5770
< ahref="http://www.livingtraditions.org">www.livingtraditions.org
This is to announce the opening of registration for A Fertl Yurhundert KlezKamp, our 25th anniversary program to be held at the Hudson Valley Resort and Spa from December 23–29. This year's program features a faculty of over 45 of the world's greatest exponents of traditional and contemporary Yiddish culture.
We invite you to follow us on Facebook and get regular updates about our upcoming event. For more information about the program register online at our KlezKamp website. We look forward to seeing you this coming December at KlezKamp 25.
Henry Sapoznik
KLEZFIESTA 2009
Ya esta llegando la 2º Edición de la Klezfiesta, y esta año llega recargado!!!
Próximamente recibirás información de los lugares y horarios de las presentaciones.
Buenos Aires
Del 7 al 15 de Noviembre de 2009
Website: www.klezfiesta.com.ar
KlezmerShack favorites: Ribs & Brisket Revue
New England premiere! (If you don't count a wonderful show at the 2008 Paper Bridge fest in Amherst)
Saturday, October 24, 2009 8pm
Sunday, October 25, 2009 2pm
Ribs & Brisket Revue has been serving up heaping helpings of '40s & '50s-style Jewish jazz, Yiddish swing, and various kosher-style blues to fans everywhere. Ribs & Brisket Revue both entertains and impresses: chicken soup for the weary, postmodern soul. The most fun you’ll have at a concert this year!
Tickets: $25 General; $23 JCC members and seniors
Pre-show talk: Sunday, October 25, 2009 12:30pm
”Roots: Klezmer Meets Jazz—Exploring Jewish and African-American musical traditions”
Hankus Netsky
Faculty, New England Conservatory; Founder and director, Klezmer Conservatory Band
Free with ticket to either show or $8 General / $5 JCC members
Ribs and brisket bake-off: Enter your favorite brisket recipe!
A panel of culinary judges, including Firefly’s chef, Steve Uliss and PBS Cookbook authors Sheila and Marilyn Brass, will select the best recipes. Winners will be announced at the Saturday evening show and a taste of the winning recipe will be served.
Winner receives
KlezKanada 2009 Full Brochure Now Available for Download!
We have an unbelievably exciting, diverse program planned. Read the brochure, share it with your friends and family, and then come to KlezKanada 2009! See you there!
Here's the thing. If you look at the young people doing exciting Jewish music, a huge number, from Michael Winograd, Sarah Gordon, Dan Blacksberg, Kinneret Sagee, Joey Weisenberg, Lorie Wolf, Rachel Lemisch, Josh Dolgin, and Eric Stein are KlezKanada alumni. How does one week at a Bnai Brith summer camp have so much influence? I think it is the balance between incredible traditional programming, lots of people happy to push boundaries and try new things, and the physical space to explore. Or, it could just be that the nicest people show up and what else could happen exciting music and culture? I'll be there, documenting it as best I can in the daily, multilingual newsletter. See you there!
For those who don't know yet, Beyond the Pale has released a new CD with their patented blend of traditional folk music and intricate instrumental weavings. "Postcards" is an all-too-short record of where the band is traveling now, from traditional-sounding new melodies to Windham-Hill-ish explorations of pleasing harmonies. On this outing the band also features well-known young Israeli Yiddish singer Vira Lozinsky on several vocals.
Speaking of traveling, I mention Beyond the Pale in particular because they are on a short US tour this week, starting today in Amherst at the National Yiddish Book Center. You can catch them next week in NYC (including at the Theo Bikel 85th birthday bash), and then Princeton, NJ on June 17. It is the first time I can remember them being on the US east coast so I want to let people know who are already familiar with the band, and to encourage those who haven't sampled the music yet to catch the shows.
JMI KlezFest London 9—14 August 2009
An internationally recognized largely European faculty, led by New York ace trumpeter, Frank London (Klezmatics) will provide an intensive and inspiring week-long summer School in London of Eastern European Jewish Music for amateur and professional instrumentalists, singers and dancers of all backgrounds.
All participants, from 16 – to 86, will be taken on a klezmer journey in workshops and masterclasses on repertoire, rhythm, style and ornamentation ideally suited to their ability, experience and interests.
This year there will be opportunities to work in groups – creating together and managing the dynamics of the group as well as special sessions on stage presentation by opera coach Jennifer Hamilton. There will be strands to train students in playing klezmer music for traditional dancing and on learning how to teach klezmer in workshop situations – broadening it out into the community.
Guy Schalom’s popular Percussion workshops will be back as will the famous KlezFest Choir with Polina Shepherd. Bands who come together as a group will have opportunities of Masterclasses with faculty members and to perform out and about in London. Sophie Solomon, (London) Christian Dawid and Sanne Moreicke (Khupe, Berlin), Lorin Sklamberg New York, Ilana Cravitz (London) Author of How to Play Klezmer Fiddle (OUP), Abigail Wood (Head of Music and Lecturer in Klezmer/ Jewish Music at SOAS), Paul Tkachenko and Monica Acosta, will lead workshops and ensembles including special ones in Balkan beats, Nigunim, Chassidic klezmer, Yiddish and Ladino song and Andreas Schmitges with Guy and Emma Stiman will lead the dance strand.
This year KlezFest, which takes place at the University of London on SOAS’s Vernon Square Campus, is reaching out into London bringing Klezmer to the wider community with live performances at City Hall, the Brunei Gallery at SOAS, St Pancras Station, Richmond Synagogue and the South Bank Centre and we will be eating and playing at cafes and bars in the evenings.
Students will be given a copy of Ilana Cravitz OUP book ‘a how-to guide’ or a song book and can mix and match between playing, singing and dancing in a week that will once more be heart-warming, unstoppable, exhausting, fantastic and fun!!!
There are lower prices this year!
JMI is also running its, now famous, one week Yiddish language and culture course Ot Azoy! – this is the way to speak, read and write Yiddish in a week!! This takes place the week prior to KlezFest from Sunday 2 – Friday 7 August.
Book online (www.jmi.org.uk) or write to: JMI P O Box 232, Harrow, Middlesex, HA1 2NN
A SHABBATON WITH SAM GLASER ~ JEWISH MUSIC, JEWISH MEMORY
Friday, August 7 & Saturday, August 8, 2009
Flemington Jewish Community Center
5 Sergeantsville Road, Flemington, NJ 08822
Friday, August 7th , starting at 7:30 PM
Enter into Shabbat with a joyous Kabbalat Shabbat and Evening service, followed by a festive Shabbat dinner, with study and singing.
Saturday, August 8th, starting at 9:15 AM
Stay connected with your Shabbat Soul with Shabbat services. Sam Glaser will present the Dvar Torah after the Torah service. Services will be followed by a Kiddush luncheon, followed by study and some more singing!
Shabbat Afternoon, starting at 6:00
Children's programming- Sam will teach some songs to the children who will later participate in the Saturday Night concert after Havdalah.
At 7:00, Sam will again lead a study and discussion group on "Attitude of Gratitude"- the theme of his most recent CD of the Psalms of Hallel.
Satruday evening, starting at 7:30
Mincha service, followed by Seudat Sh'lishit, the Third Meal of Shabbat, followed by study and EVEN MORE SINGING! Then we will have the Shabbat evening service and Havdalah.
Motzei Shabbat, approximately 9:00:
A SAM GLASER CONCERT- WITH PARTICIPATION OF FRIENDS AND KIDS!
Special Guest: Adrianne Greenbaum of KlezmerFlute - Nationally and internationally known klezmer musician and teacher.
All this for a requested donation of $18 per person, $36 per family. All proceeds go to support the restoration of the Jewish cemetery in Dubiecko, Poland- one of the "Lost Jewish communities" of Polish Galicia - through a program of the American Joint Distribution Committee.
PLEASE MAKE ANY CHECKS OUT TO: FJCC/ RABBI'S DISCRETIONARY FUND: DUBIECKO FUND.
Call (908) 782-6410 for further information
Continue reading "Sam Glaser in NJ shabbaton fundraiser for Dubiecko cemetery fund" »
From Cookie Segelstein: Josh Horowitz and I will be teaching at the following festival on the last weekend, on Friday June 26, and Sunday June 28.:
Berkshire Music School Presents The Berkshire¹s First Jewish Music Festival June 17 - 28
The Jewish Music Festival, developed by BMS faculty member, musician & scholar Paul Green, includes lectures, coachings and concerts. This inaugural event will be held from June 17 through June 28 at the BMS Edgar B. Taft Recial Hall, 30 Wendell Avenue in Pittsfield Massachusetts.
Lectures involving Klezmer, classical, jazz and pop music combined with Bernstein and Gershwin will be offered Wednesdays and Thursdays June 17, 18, 24, 25 from 10 am to 11 am. Advance tickets for all four lectures are $40. Individual tickets at the door are $12. The lectures, paired with a June 20 Faculty Concert, are $50.
Continue reading "First Berkshires Jewish Music Fest, Jun 17-28, 2009" »
The Washington Jewish Music Festival - 6/4-6/11
The 10th Anniversary Washington Jewish Music Festival brings an exciting mix of sound and energy to DC June 4-11. The Festival kicks off with a Pre-Fest Event with Israel’s Ivri Lider on June 2, followed by the official Opening Night on June 4 with the award-winning Andy Statman Trio. The Festival closes with a bang with Grammy Award winner Miri Ben-Ari: The Hip Hop Violinist. Other performers include: Pitom, The Sway Machinery, Feinsmith Quartet, Electro Morocco, ShirLaLa and The Kinsey Sicks. There's something for everyone during this festival of live performances, hands-on workshops and cross-cultural dialogues. Tickets range from free to $35. For tickets: wjmf.org. For information: 202-777-3251 or wjmf.org.
Yowza! The same wonderful folk festival that included Steven Greenman just a couple of years ago (and Margot Leverett not long before?) has snagged Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars along with a stunning array of other amazing music from around the world.
Yup, who else but the absolutely free Lowell Folk Festival, held in Lowell, MA this year on Jul 24-26, 2009. From Tuvan throat singing to Congolese dance music to Western Swing, this is the place to be. I intend to be there.
From Klezmer revival pioneer Joel Rubin to KlezKanada alum and punk Yiddish chanteur Daniel Kahn and the return of Fima Chorny and Suzanna Ghergus, this year features amazing faculty. This year, the camp runs from Aug 24 - Aug 30. You can register online. Find out more at the KlezKanada website.
Just a quick note to remind people that registration is now open for KlezKanada 2009. The camp runs from Aug 24-30 this year. Because finances are so tight, early, even timely registration is especially important. And of course, if you don't register before camp fills up, you'll miss seeing your friends, not to mention familiar faces such as mine.
You can register for KlezKanada online, even. See you there!
Spent much of yesterday touring around Cleveland with Steven Greenman. We had a great time at the West Side Market, then walked the beach on the east side. In between we passed over the Mordor Bridge a couple of times, caught sight of the Rock and Roll Museum (but had no time nor sufficient boredom to enter) and assorted ballparks. In the evening we repaired to Hiram, OH, where Steven's main group, Harmonia, was to appear at the local college. I've known Steven for over a decade, and I've know the Harmonia band-leader Walt Mahovlich almost as long, but this was the first time I saw the full band, complete with singer, Beata, plus flute player Andrei, Mr. Bass, and the fabulous Alex Fedoriuk on cymbalom. What an amazing group! (You can view photos from my entire trip, including the rest of the soundcheck, on Flickr.
Harmonia, with Beata on board, reminds me a lot of the Hungarian band, Muzsicás—amazing, non-brass-centric, music from Eastern/Central Europe. Beata's voice is a revelation. It is very much worth getting their CD, Music of Eastern Europe. Walt took us on a tour of various ethnic song and dance styles, with a dance group of Hungarian Scouts providing frequent accompaniment.
In a way, seeing this music on the concert stage reminded me of the contradiction faced by klezmer bands--how to represent a folk tradition on the concert stage. The sad difference, however, is that the music Harmonia is playing represents living traditions. At best, klezmer bands, especially when appearing with folk dance instructors, are helping to recreate an older tradition and return it to the world of modern evolving traditions. (At worst, klezmer is heard as some sort of nostalgia for a world never experienced by the ancestors of many American Jews, but which we all imagine must have existed in some personal, remote, Anatevka.)
Better than all of this, Harmonia is just an excellent, exciting band that swings wildly. I already knew Alex's playing from his cymbalom CDs. Steven is justifiably famous as one of the foremost klezmer fiddlers. Walt I have heard in several contexts over the years and he is always exciting. The rest of the band—and their interplay, was the exciting revelation.
Tonight Steven, Alex, and Walt appear at Temple Tifereth Israel as part of "Klezmerpalooza" with Yiddishe Cup and other fine bands. If you are in the Cleveland Area, I recommend that you stop on by. Music starts at 7pm.
Klezmer Paris - 2009
musique juive d'Europe centrale
Faites du Klezmer !
INSCRIVEZ-VOUS VITE !
Stage de musique instrumentale / Music workshop
Stage de chant / Song workshop
Stage de danse / Dance workshop
Stage pour juniors / Juniors classes
Du 6 au 10 juillet 2009
Simultanés et avec de nombreuses passerelles, ces quatre stages de musique juive d'Europe de l'Est
seront animés par des artistes de renommée internationale.
The four parallel courses (with common activities) - klezmer
music, Yiddish songs and nigunim, Jewish dances of Eastern
Europe and Juniors classes - are all led by internationally
known musicians.
INSCRIVEZ-VOUS VITE ! REGISTER NOW !
Informations et bulletin d'inscription / information and
application form:
www.yiddishweb.com
Tel : + 33 1 47 00 14 00 - Fax : + 33 1 47 00 14 47
MAISON DE LA CULTURE YIDDISH
So, what is new Jewish music? Wednesday night a friend and I treated ourselves to one memorable, delightful, loud, rocking, beat-ful snapshot. Whilst I exchanged text messages with a friend who had seen BBB the night prior in DC, The Sway Machinery came onstage 45 minutes late, but proceeded to create an exciting aural explosion. I was unable to make out specific words, but I could catch familiar nusakh complemented exquisitely (that may be the wrong word for high-energy intense dance beats) by the hyperactive rhythm section. Featuring players from several of NYC's best-known underground bands, The Sway Machinery made clear what I had hitherto suspected from video and mp3. They rock. The energy was addictive and entrancing.
Ah, but that was just the warm-up. After a short break to set up for Balkan Beat Box, Lockwood was back with the beats and I was further blown away. Jumping around on stage, going through bottles of water as though they were drugs, pulling in beats, rap, and again, an incredibly tight rhythm section, BBB featured a lot of material new to me, presumably from the new CD, and many more pieces from their last two CDs.
The dance floor was incredibly crowded. It was hard to take my eyes off the performers on stage. It has been a long time since I have seen a band give so much, so intensely. But when I looked around me, I could see that I wasn't the only person in the nicely diverse audience enjoying myself and moving frenetically (okay, most people were in their 20s or 30s, but there were a few alte kakers like me—and even a few in between, like a friend from work—not Jewish, just very much into dancing and beats, and, as he put it later, "sweatier than you will likely see me ever again.").
I hope it isn't the kiss of death that people in my advanced middle ages can enjoy a band this loud and this young. I can't wait to see them again.
This period between Purim and Pesakh has been incredibly rich for Boston audiences. From Israeli traditional Ladino/Yiddish singer Betty Klein at Workmen's Circle (favorite moment: listening to Tufts University professor Gloria Asher read a poem that she had written in Ladino, and then hearing Betty's setting of the poem), to the Three Yiddish Divas (such a stupendous show, and so much new Yiddish music, along with the standards, and in a political statement that I wish more were listening to, closing with the Hebrew/Israel song, שיר השלום (Shir Ha-Shalom). Somewhere in there was Balkan Night, and just last week, Israeli/Ethiopian Idan Raichel with his rhythmic "Project," tighter even than the stupendous band they were a year ago and the year before that. Last weekend we were treated to KCB founder Hankus Netsky w/Dobe Ressler accompanying KCB former lead singer Judy Bresler teaching a crowded room Yiddish dance (co-sponsored by Workmen's Circle), with several of us running out after the music stopped to hear a revived and thoroughly exciting Shirim Klezmer Orchestra in Cambridge. From klezmer, to Satie, to Pakistani Brass music, Shirim at the LIlypad is one of the city's special treats. I am happy to report that this concert, like all of those I mentioned in this brief summary, was crowded, if not quite sold out. There is still room for you, dear reader—at least, a few of the more fortunate of you ;-).
20th Annual North American Jewish Choral Festival
July 12-16, 2009
Hudson Valley Resort & Spa
Kerhonkson, NY
Click to download: Festival Brochure (PDF)
Hotel Reservation Form (PDF)
For more information, contact (212) 870-3335
www.zamirfdn.org
Here are two disparate, very kid-friendly (and adult-friendly) Jewish music events for a rainy Sunday afternoon in the Boston area. Judy Bresler is an outstanding dance teacher (and you thought she was just a pretty voice). Shirim has been adding some new material and sounds excited about playing music all over again. More details on the KlezmerShack calendar, www.klezmershack.com (or just to view USA_northeast: www.klezmershack.com/calendar/cat_loc_usa_northeast.php:
At the door: $8 Youth / $10 Adult
Get ready to dance at your great grandparents' wedding! Join Hankus Netsky, clarinetist Dena Ressler, and dance caller Judy Bressler and learn line, circle, and set dances from the "Old Country"! Join in the fun and learn dances such as the Freylakhs, Bulgar, Hora, and Sher! This workshop is co-sponsored by the Boston Workmen's Circle.
tel: 781-395-0402
springstep.org
Shirim Klezmer Orchestra @ The Lilypad on Mar. 29, 2009!
Shirim Klezmer Orchestra, masters of the klezmer universe, perform a fun and infectious concert of klezmer and beyond on Mar. 29, 2:00pm at the Lilypad, 1353 Cambridge St., Inman Square, Cambridge, MA . Suggested donation, $10, $7/kids. Bring the kids, bring your grandmother! Be ready to move. This is music for the soul.
Okay, one and a half more trimesters and I am done with school. I'll have a new degree (nope, still no musical ability and no music degree). In the meantime, things continue to be sometimes plentiful, sometimes out of date. Today, I am just in time to remind ya'll that the mother of all Jewish music festivals open tonight in Berkeley, CA.
The video, below, was borrowed from a blog post by the one and only King of Texas Jewish Bluegrass Tuba (to focus on just a few of his many talents), titled less expansively, "Austin's King of Jewish Bluegrass Tuba"
More info about the festival, and His Royal Rubinity, at this KTVU web article, Jewish Music Fest Brings Diversity Of Global Sound.
Memorial Evening for Pesakh Fiszman z"l,
Wednesday, February 18, 2009, 6-8 pm
Cosponsored by The Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring and The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
at The Center for Jewish History,
15 West 16th Street, New York, New York.
(Photo id required for entry)
For additional information, phone 212.889-6800, ext. 203.
To submit photos or text for the event, please email Kolya Borodulin at the Workmen's Circle.
Di shloyshim far Pesach Fiszman z"l veln forkumen mitvokh dem 18tn february, 2009 fun 6-8 in ovnt, in dem "Center for Jewish History", 15 W. 16te gas (tsvishn 5ter un 6ter evenyu) in Manhetn.
Az ir vilt araynshikn a tekst tsi a bild, farbindt zikh mit
Kolya Borodulin in Arbeter-Ring.
The Segal Centre for Performing Arts proudly announces the 1st Montreal International Yiddish Theatre Festival, June 17-25, 2009
The Montreal International Yiddish Theatre Festival will bring together Yiddish theatres from Israel, France, Romania, Poland, Australia, the USA and, of course, Canada.
This Festival will have something for everyone. For audiences, a diversity of exciting formal and impromptu events will entertain, educate, and inspire. For theatre professionals, the Festival offers a unique opportunity for artistic exchange.
Continue reading "1st Montreal International Yiddish Theatre Festival, Jun 17-25, 2009" »
Shirim
Sunday, Feb. 8, 2009, 2:00pm
The Lilypad,
1353 Cambridge St.,
Inman Square, Cambridge, MA
Wash away your midwinter blues with some klezmer music, this Sunday afternoon, Feb. 8, 2:00-4:00pm at the Lilypad, 1353 Cambridge St., Inman Square, Cambridge, MA . Suggested donation, $10, $7/kids. Bring the kids, bring your mother! Be ready to move. This is music for the soul. Come see us, you won’t regret it in this intimate venue. This performance will be more music, less talk, with a few non-klezmer gems thrown in for good measure.
The band will feature: me on clarinet; Gary Bohan, trumpet; Michael Mclaughlin, accordion & piano; Dan Fox, trombone; Jim Gray on tuba; Eric Rosenthal on drums!
The Lilypad is not big, so get there a little early to make sure you get in (and parked).
See you soon!
Anyone who has heard Greg Wall's and Aaron Alexander's work with "Later Prophets" knows that this is the critical NYC event of the weekend. Don't blame me if you miss it:
This Satuday nite—You are invited to the debut of HAOROT:The Lights Of Rav Kook Concert Feb 7th in NYC
"Give me, give me rays of light, Enough for me, enough, these pits of darkness."
(Rav Kook)
Shalom friends:
In these challenging days, the profound insights and inspirational poetry of Rav Kook offer us illumination in the darkness.
Rabbi Itzchak Marmorstein and Rabbi Greg Wall's Later Prophets have collaborated in creating a powerful jazz presentation of Rav Kook's poetry in Hebrew and English. Their debut concert is Saturday, Feb. 7 at Congregation Bnai Jeshurun at 7:00 p.m. (257 W. 88 St.)
The lineup will include:
Rabbi Itzchak- spoken word
Rabbi Greg Wall-saxophone, flute, shofar
Pablo Vergara-keyboards
Dave Richards-bass
Aaron Alexander-drums.
This evening is sponsored by Romemu and Bnai BJ members. It will begin with a Tu b'Shvat celebration.
Pesakh Fiszman was one of the nicest people, and one of the fiercest advocates of using Yiddish, I have known. Yet, he could also give an entire lecture on the history of klezmer, almost entirely in Yiddish, such that a non-Yiddish-speaking audience understood it easily. He will be missed very much.
The following was pass to the Jewish-Music list from Jeff Warschauer, conveying words by Kolya Borodulin
Pesach was a very dear friend, teacher, mentor and hero to Deborah, to me, and to countless others throughout the world.
Boruch Dayan Emes.
From Kolya Borodulin:
We are saddened to inform you that our dear friend and teacher, Pesah Fiszman passed away Friday 1 am. As per his wishes there will be only a graveside burial at Mount Hebron cemetery (13004 Horace Harding Expy Flushing, NY 11367) at 1 pm.
We are planning a memorial for our beloved Pesah and will notify you shortly.
Mit tifn troyer zogn mir on az undzer tayerer khaver un lerer, Pesah Fishman iz geshtorbn Fraytik 1 banakht. Loyt zayn onzog veln levaye un kvure opgerikht vern afn besoylem Mount Hebron (13004 Horace Harding Expy Flushing, NY 11367) 1 nokh mitog.
Mir planirin a haskore nokh undzer Peysakhn gor in gikhn un vel aykh lozn visn.
Mitarbeter un studentn fun “Arbeter Ring”
From Miryam-Khaye Seigel:
Ot iz nokh a tsugob informatsye (untn), vegn dem zuntik dem 18tn ven me vet im mekaber zayn.
Oyb ir vilt mit mir un Esther-Malke Goodman drukn a troyer-anons in Forverts, zayt azoy gut un shtelt zikh in kontakt mit mir.
Zoln ale gefinen a treyst in der shverer sho.
From Theresa Tova:
Dos is azoy troyerik tsu hern.
Pesakh hot gehat azoy fil derheretz far yedn yidish reder.
Un hot gelernt undz shtendik mit a vitz un a gitn mayse tsu dertsaylnMy g-d he will be missed!
Albuquerque, New Mexico USA, January 7th, 2009 -- The Southwest’s 7th Celebration of Klezmer Music and Dance-- KLEZMERQUERQUE 2009-- presents 4 days of concerts, dance parties, classes and workshops featuring the world-renowned Strauss/Warschauer Klezmer Duo—Deborah Strauss and Jeff Warschauer; the acclaimed dancer, choreographer, dance scholar and historian Judith Brin Ingber, as well as many local artists. ‘Klezmer’ is the music and dance of the Jewish people of Eastern Europe which is currently enjoying a revival in the world music scene as well as in popular music and culture. The annual festival will take place from February 12-15 (Thursday evening through Sunday afternoon) at Albuquerque’s Congregation Nahalat Shalom which is located on 3606 Rio Grande Blvd. NW (between Candelaria & Griegos).
For detailed information about class times, prices, tickets & registration:
Beth Cohen, Klezmerquerque coordinator (505) 243-6276 and/or
The non-profit and tax-exempt Congregation Nahalat Shalom: (505) 343-8227
www.nahalatshalom.org
This is early notice, but I gotta warn you—get tix now before this sells out. (and if it doesn't sell out? shame on us—I mean, look at what we're talking about):
The Jewish Theatre of New England at the Leventhal-Sidman Jewish Community Center
Presents
THE THREE YIDDISH DIVAS
Saturday, March 21, 8pm Sunday, March 22 2pm
Theresa Tova (Jazz-Cabaret Diva), Joanne Borts (Theatre Diva) and Adrienne Cooper (Concert Stage Diva) blend their multilingual repertoire and phenomenal talents into a sophisticated, emotionally charged and stunningly powerful concert.
These outstanding stars of Yiddish cabaret pour passion and artistry into Yiddish jazz, cabaret and theatre songs—including an unforgettable repertoire of the Yiddish theatre greats who inspired modern Broadway.
Continue reading "Three Yiddish Divas coming to my home town, Mar 21-22, 2009" »
Alan Watsky posted notice of this event to the Jewish-Music mailing list. The event is free, but Alan says that an RSVP is required. I cannot find a way to RSVP on the website, so check in with Symphony Space to be sure. The event is sure to have extra resonance this year, and Abraham Inc is an exciting ensemble.
Mon, Jan 19 at 6:30 pm
Peter Jay Sharp Theatre
Symphony Space,
NYC
Free and open to the public .
Honor the life and work of Dr Martin Luther King, on the eve of this historic presidential inauguration, with a celebratory night of music. Abraham, Inc. inspires audiences with their unique blend of the sounds and cultures of renowned trombonist Fred Wesley, who has worked extensively with James Brown, klezmer clarinet virtuoso David Krakauer, and beat architect Socalled.
If you are in NYC, you'll hear everyone from Drs. Hankus Netsky and Joel Rubin to Alicia Svigals at this amazing event:
December 16 2008
3pm to 4:30:
Symposium 'Beyond Boundaries: Klezmer in the 21st Century' at CUNY's Martin E. Segal Theatre.
7pm:
Concert with Yale Strom & Hot Pstromi and special guests celebrating the first anniversary of the historic 'Great Day on Eldridge Street' photo and gathering. Martin E. Segal Theatre, CUNY, New York
For more info, see the Klezmershack calendar listing.
From Eastern European Jewish dance powerhouse Steve Weintraub:
Chag Sameach everyone. I'm very happy to announce that Chicago now joins NYC and the Bay Area in what I may dare to call the "Tanzhoyz Movement". (Who's next, I wonder) I'll be hosting monthly Yiddish dance parties with live music! Here's to getting those dances back into the community. Wish us luck!
Join us at the HOPKELE
Chicagoland's NEW monthly Klezmer Dance Party
Led by Internationally renowned Yiddish DanceMaster STEVE WEINTRAUB
With LIVE music provided by KURT BJORLING and Members of CHICAGO KLEZMER ENSEMBLE
Last Wednesdays of the month (mostly)
NEXT HOPKELE
October 29, 7:30pm to 9:30pm
At JRC
303 Dodge Avenue
Evanston, Illinois
847-328-7678
$8 / $5 JRC members and students
* SHEMSPEED ANNIVERSARY PARTY
Mark your iCals! On November 18th Shemspeed will be taking over the hottest new club in town, Le Poisson Rouge for the Shemspeed One Year Anniversary Party! The night will feature Shemspeed's favorite artists including, Electro Morocco, Piamenta, King Django, Diwon, Smadar,, Y-Love, Avi Fox-Rosen, KoshaDillz, Blue Fringe and special guests... Definitely pass this on to your fam/friends/fiends. This is an event that you do not want to miss!
Nov 18th 2008
Doors at 6pm | Show at 7pm
18+
$10
158 Bleeker St, NYC
Buy Tickets at http://lepoissonrouge.inticketing.com/evinfo.php?eventid=29252
To ensure a spot and get in for only 10bux, purchase tickets now.
Come celebrate the Anniversary of Shemspeed and the launch of The Shemspeed Daily @ www.shemspeed.com/daily
At last I can spill the beans! I've been biting my tongue to keep from kvelling about this recording for ages. I should have realized that if anyone could bring Jorma into the klezmer fold, it would be the persuasive, astonishing, and ever klezmerdich Ms. Leverett. (My very first CD review was about Jorma's "Hot Tuna/Burgers" release, for a Dallas underground paper that had the good sense to reject it on the grounds of bad writing.) This is a CD that brings out the best in klezmer, bluegrass, and all the colors in between. The vocal by Hazel Dickens is wonderful. Guest appearances by the whole gange of Tony Trischka, Darol Anger, David Grier, Mike Marshall—and David Licht on drums and Hankus Netsky on piano…. Whew! I'll let Margot take over—but look for me at the party; I so want to be there:
Announcing the release of the new CD by Margot Leverett and the Klezmer Mountain Boys—"2nd Avenue Square Dance" on Traditional Crossroads.
Our CD RELEASE PARTY will be Tuesday, October 7, at 8pm at DROM, 85 Ave. A (between 5th and 6th streets), NYC. Featuring guest artists Jorma Kaukonen (hot tuna), Dave Licht (klezmatics), Jen Larsen (straight drive) and hopefully even a few more! (212) 777-1157
www.dromnyc.com Tickets are already on sale.
This has been cancelled. Consult the website www.klezmercruise.ca for further info
Continue reading "Cancelled: Danube Klezmer Cruise, May 15-24, 2010" »
Ya'll remember the Austin Klezmorim, one of the oldest klezmer revival bands, presenters of my favorite retelling of the Purim story, etc., etc., etc. Bandleader Bill Averbach writes of a new achievement, coming up this Oct 12:
I wanted to mention that we are preparing to do an historic concert in Texas. We're a good group to do historic Texas things in the Klezmer world. We are playing at the Festival Institute in Round Top, TX. This is the first time ever that they have had music other than symphonic performances. And, yes! The Austin Klezmorim are there to blaze new trails into the Vild Vest! EEEEEHAH!
We'll be playing a wide range (no pun intended … yeah, sure, why not a pun) of music starting with the most traditional through to the most contemporary (our stuff).
I have to call your attention to an extraordinary event happening today that most people wouldn't otherwise notice: The Alexander Fiterstein Trio: Music of the European Jewish Wedding.
It is at Music Mountain in Falls Village, CT, on Saturday, Sept. 6 at 6:30pm. and features clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein along with the maestro of the tsimbl, Zev Feldman, and the avatar of the accordion, Christina Crowder. Ignore the rain, I say. This is not to be missed if you are anywhere within a few hours of the event.
There is still room to register for KlezKanada 2008, to be held from August 18 to 24. Act quickly to be part of the richest, most intense experience of Yiddishkeit in North America.
Follow these links to download KlezKanada's
2008 Registration Form
2008 Brochure
2008 Workshop Choice Sheet
Check out the new KlezKanada website, www.klezkanada.org
For 13 years Ashkenaz has brought the finest
in Yiddish and Jewish culture to Toronto.
To celebrate our ‘Bar Mitzvah’ year we
have assembled a diverse and exciting
festival lineup featuring more than
70 performances and 200 individual
artists from a dozen countries. From
music, dance, theatre, and film, to visual
arts, literature, discussions, kids and
family activities, and group celebrations
like Havdallah and our famous Parade,
Ashkenaz offers a wealth of artistic and cultural
experiences for all the senses.
The intermingling of tradition and innovation
has always been the hallmark not just of the
Ashkenaz Festival, but of the global Jewish
community. This year, Ashkenaz once again
presents a mix of traditional arts along with
multicultural fusion bridging communities
and artistic traditions from within and
beyond the Jewish world. And while
contemporary Klezmer music and
Yiddish culture remain at the heart
of our programming, we are thrilled
this year to offer more Sephardic
music and culture than ever before.
In short, Ashkenaz offers something
for everyone, a multi-cultural, multigenerational
experience for Jews and non-
Jews alike.
It's confirmed! Steven Greenman (violin) and Walt "Vlado" Mahovlich (clarinet) will be in the Boston area in about two weeks to play some freaking amazing Eastern European music. We rushed to find a venue and managed to rent the Lily Pad 7pm, Aug 4. Now to fill it!
The duo, 2/5 of the Cleveland world music band, Harmonia (as well as members of the original Budowitz) will be playing a wild array of Eastern European folk music: balkan, Rom, klezmer.
Boston Balkan music fans will know Walt from his many appearances at Balkan night. Steven, of course, is renowned for his Eastern European klezmer roots recording with Zev Feldman, Khevrisa, as well as his more recent, and stunning release, Stempenyu's Dream.
This is likely to be the most fun you can have on a week night any time soon. I intend to bring my copy of the Shalom Aleichem story after which Steven named his band for autographing ;-). Do please help spread the word.
Starting today, and continuing through July 17th, the place to be is on the campus of Hampshire College at the National Yiddish Book Center, for their Paper Bridge Festival. We're talking lectures, dance, music, discussions—an incredible gathering to get a sense of Yiddish culture today. Featured performers/bands include Eleanor Reissa (tonight!), a super-group featuring Hankus Netsky, Michael Alpert, and stars from Eastern Europe, the Ribs and Brisket Revue, Hank Sapoznik and the Youngers of Zion, SoCalled, and Margot Leverett. Oh, and did I mention that most of these folks will be holding workshops, and that Jeffrey Sandler will be doing some amazing stuff, as will be the infamous Michael Wex? They'll even be showing movies and TV—they'll even be playing a movie produced by my own Jewish Women's Archive, the festival-award-winning Making Trouble, about six ground-breaking (and very funny) Jewish women comedians.
Get the whole scoop at www.bikher.org/+calendar#2008-07-06
Bob Blacksberg, talented photographer and proud parent of world-famous trombonist Dan Blacksberg (who appears in the "Other Europeans" video) writes:
The Festival has now posted segments from several of the performances at www.dni-kultury-zydowskiej.info/en_main.html. The "Next" icon in the Windows Media Player applet will cycle through the segments, which each run about 5 minutes. All performers deserve hearing, of course. The final portion of the Other Europeans, that Ruth Ellen Gruber posted yesterday, is included in the "official" feed. Would that we could have seen today's Shalom on Szeroka Street.
Okay, it's true that I'll be doing the multilingual daily newsletter (Yiddish, English, maybe some Russian, Spanish—in whatever languages events happen) and other computer-related stuff there, but there is also going to be some hot Yiddish culture, starting with klezmer.
The brochure for the 13th edition of KlezKanada's Summer Institute is now available! Download it in PDF form from our website. Also available is the Workshop Choice Sheet. Print it, fill it out and send it in!
Download the 2008 registration form/a> and send it in today to reserve your place at KlezKanada!!
Our new website is almost finished and should be online very soon! There, amongst bright colours, you will find full faculty bios, a year-round calendar of events, program highlights, pictures, videos and more!!
Can't wait until August?? Recapture some amazing moments from last year's concerts on KlezKanada's YouTube Channel.
We can thank JDub for some of my favorite music of the last five years, from SoCalled to Matisyahu, recent Golem, Balkan Beat Box, etc. This should be an incredible show.
On Sunday July 20th, JDub is celebrating its 5th Anniversary with a FREE event at the Prospect Park bandshell as part of the annual Celebrate Brooklyn festival series. The event, which runs from 5-9 PM (doors open at 4) will feature Golem, Soulico, DeLeon, Sway Machinery, and Michael Showalter hosting, as well as cool special guests like Brian from Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Israeli godfather of hip-hop Sagol 59 and a marching band.
JDub has brought some of the most interesting music of the last five years--yeah, those are JDub artists above, and doesn't even include SoCalled or former stablemate, Matisyahu. This is the place to be on July 20th.
Celebrate Brooklyn @ Prospect Park Bandshell Doors open at 4 PM; music starts at 5 PM $3 suggested donation to Celebrate Brooklyn www.briconline.org/celebrate/072008.aspIt's Krakow Jewish Culture Festival Time! Several of the concerts are being broadcast, starting with today's cantorial concert. Krakow time is GMT+1, or 6 hours later than here on the US East Coast. To catch the7pm local time concert, tune in at 1pm EST, or the equivalent for wherever you are. There will be concerts all week, most at 7pm and 10pm Krakow time.
Living Traditions, in conjunction with YIVO, and the Uriel Weinrich / NYU Program in Yiddish Language Literature and Culture, presents:
KlezKamp Roadshow
Sunday, July 13, 2008
12:30-8:30pm
Classes + Workshops: 12:30-6:00pm
dance party: 7:00-8:30pm
Center for Jewish History
15 W. 16th St., NYC
Continue reading "KlezKamp one-day roadshow, NYC, July 13, 2008" »
SUMMER STAGE — June 29th — FREE
Shemspeed is throwing the biggest summer party possible with Summer Stage in Central Park for FREE. The line up includes the world famous MOSH BEN ARI, with Rupa, Y-Love and Diwon.
Get to the park early, as the line tends to get crazy as the day goes on.
Show starts at 3pm SHARP! GET THERE EARLY TO BEAT THE LINES!
Location: Central Park Summer Stage is located at Rumsey Playfield in Central Park. Enter the park at 69th Street and 5th Avenue on the east side or at 72nd Street and Central Park West on the west side.
KlezFest London August 10 - 15 Directed by Frank London, with SongFest directed by Shura Lipovsky and DanceFest by Andreas Schmitges. With special guests Moshe Berlin (Israel), Steve Weintraub (USA) and Joanne Borts (USA). An incredible week of Klezmer classes, workshops, masterclasses, jams and concerts in the heart of London. See www.jmi.org.uk for full details.
KlezKanada 2008 will take place from August 18 through 24.
We have a world-class faculty and a fantastic program of concerts, lectures, films and hands-on workshops scheduled. The proprietor of this website will be there once again facilitating the Yiddish gossip column, the blog, and other neat, new ventures.
You can download all of the information at www.klezkanada.com.
Hope to see you there!
KlezKamp Roadshow: July 30-August 6, 2008
Block & Hexter Vacation Center, Pocono Mts. PA
For more information (note new address):
Living Traditions
207 W. 25th Street, 4th floor
New York City, NY 10001
(212) 532-8202
or visit the Living Traditions Website
On Sunday July 20th, JDub is celebrating its 5th Anniversary with a FREE event at the Prospect Park bandshell as part of the annual Celebrate Brooklyn festival series. The event, which runs from 5-9 PM (doors open at 4) will feature Golem, Soulico, DeLeon, Sway Machinery, and Michael Showalter hosting, as well as cool special guests like Brian from Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Israeli godfather of hip-hop Sagol 59 and a marching band.
JDub has brought some of the most interesting music of the last five years--yeah, those are JDub artists above, and doesn't even include SoCalled or former stablemate, Matisyahu. This is the place to be on July 20th.
Celebrate Brooklyn @ Prospect Park Bandshell
Doors open at 4 PM; music starts at 5 PM
$3 suggested donation to Celebrate Brooklyn
www.briconline.org/celebrate/072008.asp
KLEZMER PARIS - 2008
Musique juive d'Europe centrale / Jewish music from Central Europe
Stage de musique instrumentale / Music workshop
Stage de chant yiddish et de danse / Yiddish song and dance workshop
Stage pour enfants et juniors / Kids and juniors classes
Du 7 au 11 juillet 2008 - July 7th - 11th, 2008
INSCRIVEZ-VOUS VITE ! REGISTER NOW !
Informations détaillées et bulletin d'inscription / more information and application form:
www.yiddishweb.com
Tél : + 33 (0)1 47 00 14 00 - Fax : + 33 (0)1 47 00 14 47
Continue reading "Paris Klezmer Festival arrives, Jul 7-11, 2008" »
YUGNTRUF presents our year's week-long retreat, where we strive to speak only Yiddish, will be held WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20 through TUESDAY, AUGUST 26, 2008 at the Berkshire Hills Emanuel Adult Vacation Center in Copake, New York.
The Yiddish-Vokh is a real community, in which our members give the lectures, lead discussions and workshops. Our members include professors, activists, writers and musicians, who share their knowledge, talent and love of mame-loshn.
There's a swimming pool and a beautiful lake. All activities are in Yiddish, including sports, folk-dancing, lectures, discussions, literary reading, campfire singing, talent show, concerts, films, Yiddish classes for advanced beginners and organized programs for children. The food is kosher, with vegetarian options. On Shabes, services will be available.
Register now at yiddishweek.com
Date: Mon, 19 May 2008
Subject: Newsletter Yiddish Summer Weimar: The Other Europeans July 10th - August 15th 2008
Dear Friends of Yiddish Summer Weimar,
I just returned today from Chisinau (Kishinev), Moldova, where I spent an incredible five days with Marin Bunea (violinist), Diana Bunea (musicologist), Adam Stinga (trumpeter), Kalman Balogh (cimbalist), Fima Chorny (singer/songwriter) and Susana Ghergus (pianist). We spent from morning to night discussing, playing, listening, and exploring the topic of klezmer (Jewish) and lautari (Roma) musicians in Moldavia before the war and until today....
Yiddish Summer Weimar
Veranstalter other music e.V.
c/o Kulturbüro LaRete | Goetheplatz 3 | 99423 Weimar
Fon +49 (0)3643 50 66 77 | Fax +49 (0)3643 49 86 04
Mehr Informationen zum Festival finden Sie unter
www.yiddish-summer-weimar.de
Frank London's
Worldwide Booty Shaking
Music Extravaganza
Carnival Party
aka "Frank London's 50th Birthday Party Blowout at DROM"
8pm: Sizzle Ohtaka and Han'nya Teikoku from Japan
9pm: Brian Mitchel Band deliver New Orleans funk
10pm: Scott Kettner & Maracata New York—Northern Brazilian carnival party
11pm: Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars
12pm: DJ Joro Boro
May 7, at DROM
85 Avenue A (btw 5th and 6th)
NYC
Cover: $15
www.dromnyc.com
From Flory Jagoda:
Please join me for a splendid afternoon of Jewish Sephardic music on
Sunday, April 6, 2008 at 4:00 pm.
The one hour concert will be at Congregation Etz Hayim, the synagogue that has been my religious home since I first came to America in 1946.
I was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Before the madness of the Second World War, 14,000 Jewish people called Sarajevo home and it was known throughout Europe as /Chico Yerushalayim/ (Little Jerusalem) for its thriving Sephardic community. Today, sadly, there are only 160 Jewish survivors living there and most of them are elderly and ill.
They need our help and I am committed to sending them the help that they need.
To Buy Tickets and/or make a donation, please contact:
Congregation Etz Hayim, 2920 Arlington Blvd, Arlington, VA 22204
703.979.4466 / fax: 703.979.4458
www.etzhayim.net
Checks can be made to: Congregation Etz Hayim - Sarajevo Benefit Fund
Tickets are $20, with a discount of $5 off for seniors and students.
Children 12 and under are free. Please reserve your tickets in advance by March 31st .
Posted to the Jewish-Music mailing list:
Below is a link to Mystic Seaport Museum's call for papers. Papers based on music of the sea, influenced by the sea or seafaring, emigration, immigration. Many ethnic groups have been represented although England tends to be favored because of all the sea shanties. There must be something Jewish that could be a good fit for the symposium and the Sea Music Festival which would include Jewish music if a relevant paper was selected.
Mystic Seaport Seeking Paper Proposals for "Music of America and the Sea", Symposium to be part of the Museum's 29th Annual Sea Music Festival
"Songs of Life" Festival commemorates Bulgarian rejection of Nazi antisemitism during WWII"The Songs of Life Festival" will be held in Israel and Bulgaria from Nov 21 - Dec 1, 2008. The festival will feature Sacred Service by Ernest Bloch.
The festival marks the 65th anniversary of the heroic rescue of 50,000 Bulgarian Jews during World War II and serves as a celebration of the preservation of life.
Individual performers as well as choirs are invited to perform in the festival. Performers will sing Bloch s Sacred Service in Bulgaria and Israel. The 12-day itinerary also allows for individual presentations by guest choirs and opportunities for sightseeing and guided tours. Auditors are also invited to attend the festival and participate in the tours.
Please join us in this celebration of thanksgiving that will impact generations to come. www.SongsOfLife.org
I just got word of this late last night, and reservations have to be made today (or presumably, at the door on Sunday, but this is a fantastic event!
HOT, HIP AND HEYMISH
with the Queen of Yiddish Soul
Congregation Sinai presents
ELEANOR REISSA SINGS YIDDISH SOUL
Piano Accompaniment by GRANT STURIALE
DIRECT FROM A SOLD OUT RUN AT THE HOUSEMAN THEATRE IN NY!
Sunday, February 24th at 2:00 PM at Congregation Sinai, 1532 Willowbrae Avenue in San Jose
Tickets for 2pm Eleanor Reissa performance are $36. each, in support of her brother's San Jose shul. For reservations and more information, please contact the Sinai office (1532 Willowbrae Avenue, San Jose or 408-264-8542). CDs will be available for purchase at the concert as well. Reservations required by February 22nd.
Continue reading "Eleanor Reissa in San Jose, CA this Sunday, Feb 24, 2008" »
Music, Oppression and Exile: The Impact of Nazism on Musical Development in the 20th Century
International Conference, Senate House, University of London, 8–11 April 2008
‘Hitler tore a gaping hole in European culture and the damage has not yet been repaired’. Nick Kimberley, The Observer, 2002.
With four days of papers from across the world this conference is set to be one of the most significant symposia ever held on the subject. It will also include sessions with families of the composers affected and presentations from archives where their material is housed. There will be films introduced by the makers We Want the Light on Music in Germany by Christopher Nupen and Music in Terezin by Simon Broughton.
The conference at the University of London will be followed on 12 and 13 April by two days of concerts, films and public lectures on Music in Exile, presented by the Artists of the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto at the Cadogan Hall.
To see details of Conference fees, speakers and to register on line music.sas.ac.uk/imr-events or the JMI Website www.jmi.org.uk
A 3-part concert to benefit the family of the Freilachmakers' former fiddler, Annette Brodovsky, will take place on Sunday February 10th, 3 pm, in the sanctuary of Congregation Bet Haverim, 1715 Anderson Road in Davis. As you may remember, Annette was tragically killed by a drunk driver on the eve of Pesach, just this past April. Three top Northern California klezmer bands, including the Davis Klezmer Orchestra, The Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band and the Red Hot Chachkas (from Marin County), will be participating. Details and contact information appear in the press release reprinted below.
Please note that we are actively seeking sponsors. Sponsors can choose donation levels ($50, $100, $500, $1000, $2500), which entitles them to concert tickets ($20 each) equivalent to their contribution. They will also have their name published in the program unless they specify not. Checks should be payable to Congregation Bet Haverim, with a notation on the check that the donation is for the Annette Brodovsky fund, and sent to the congregation at 1715 Anderson Road, Davis, CA 95616.
For more information about the concert, see the KlezmerShack calendar
New England Conservatory, 241 St. Botolph Street, Boston, will host two ten week courses with Instructor Yelena Neplok. 'Eastern European Jewish Musical Traditions' runs on Wednesdays, February 13–April 30, 2008, from 7:00–8:30 p.m., and 'The Art of Russian Piano Music' runs on Tuesdays, February 12–April 29, 2008, from 7:00–8:30 p.m.
Tuition for the NEC School of Continuing Education is $355, and financial aid is available. For more information and registration, contact: 617-585-1125 (NEC) or call the instructor at 617-566-7969 / email the instructor.
Registration is now available.
Continue reading "NEC courses on Eastern European Jewish Music begin in Feb." »
For a number of years I had an arrangement with one of my oldest friends. She'd fly out to California, where her mother (and, I) lived and we'd celebrate American Thanksgiving. And then I'd fly to Toronto to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving. One year she neglected to tell me that we were preparing Thanksgiving dinner for a couple hundred of our closest friends following a rally in support of First Nations' rights in Canada. It was tremendous fun (despite succotash made of frozen vegetables.) One year I noticed a CD by a band that featured one of my favorite folk fiddlers, Anne Lederman. Indeed, it was Toronto's first klezmer band, and they were excellent. In subsequent years the band moved from traditional klezmer to world klezmer fusion, but better than almost anyone I can think of making a similar journey. Led by trumpeter David Buchbinder (in whose honor Frank London is sometimes referred to as "the American David Buchbinder), featuring the last decade the voice of David Wall—if these guys were an American band, Wall and Buchbinder would be as well known as Loren Sklamberg and Michael Alpert—the band is going through changes, again. For their 20th anniversary, they are doing two concerts to show off and celebrate:
The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band
20th Anniversary Concert
at the Al Green Theatre (in the Miles Nadal JCC) 750 Spadina Ave
Saturday, February 9th, 8pm & Sunday, February 10th, 7:30pm
Tickets: $24 in advance, $30 at the door
Tickets available at Miles Nadal JCC reception, and by phone 416-924-6211 x 0
More info on the KlezmerShack "Jewish music around the world" calendar.
Suppose you can't be here in the Boston area on the 17th? (Suppose you're crazy like me and might even drive down from the Boston area to NYC after the Shirim gig that day?) Then, you really want to be in NYC. Winograd's first klezmer band, Khevre was a favorite of mine. But his new ensemble, and the new CD, kick ass way beyond that. This is new klezmer, in traditional style, featuring some of the best folks around, playing incredibly tightly. Don't be silly. Don't live the rest of your life regretting that you could have been at this party, and just didn't make it….
Sunday, February 17th
Michael Winograd and his Klezmer Ensemble
celebrate the release of their new CD "Bessarabian Hop" with a Big CD release party/bash/concert/extravaganza!!!
this will take place at the Workmen's Circle, in NYC! (on Sunday, Feb 17th)
that's at 45 E. 33rd Street (off Park Ave)
that's at 8pm (with doors open at 7ish)
that's $10
that's alot of fun!!!!
More info on the KlezmerShack "Jewish music anywhere in the world" calendar.
Earlier in December, Judy and I were in town for the Yiddish Dance Symposium. The same day, a symposium honoring the centenary of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel's birth was held a few blocks away at the Center for Jewish History. Judy and I caught the evening session in part to finally get to see Basya Schachter who opened the session with a short set, playing some Yiddish poems written by Heschel that she had set to music. The material ranged from Heschel's love poems to deeply religious poems.
Basya was accompanied by piano, cello, and violin. She introduced the pieces, sang, and played guitar. The music was a smooth blend of Middle Eastern, classical, and American folk/pop phrasings, creating a rhythmic artsong/cabararet feel. We were entranced. I hope that the series will be made available publicly. As did Jewlia Eisenberg on her Walter Benjamin recording (Trilectic, 2001—settings of the writings between Walter Benjamin and Asja Lacis), Basya has captured the feel of the words and set them wonderfully to music. Coming on the heels of her recent Pharaoh's Daughter recording, Haran, and her solo album of middle eastern music, "Queen's Dominion, this is further proof that Schechter is an artist to watch. In our case, and to our pleasure, literally.
The rest of the evening was less musical, but quite meaningful. That night, speakers from the current JTS chancellor, Arnie Eisen (Heschel's reception at the Jewish Theological Seminary in his day was less than glowing) to Ruth Messinger (currently, the transformative head of the American Jewish World Service) spoke to Heschel's life, his writings, and his example. As she closed, Messinger related:
Dr. Heschel was asked once what advice he had for young people. I would leave out "young". He said that we should understand that every word matters, every deed matters, and we must build our lives as if they were works of art.
'nuff said. | Permalink
The only thing that could pull me away from the Yiddish Dance confab this Sunday is a differently amazing event happening nearby. Jonathan Boyarin and Elissa Sampson are old friends who have spent much of the last 20 or 30 years working to preserve synagogues on the Lower East Side. I have davened in firetraps up and down the area, and a couple of them are actually rebuilt or being rebuilt, largely as a result of Sampson's and Boyarin's efforts.
If you wanted to honor them, the best way to do it would be to invite some damn fine musicians (2/5 of Shtreiml is one excellent choice), which is what the Stanton St. Synagogue is doing this Sunday, 12/9/07.
At my request, Sampson has gotten the synagogue to offer some limited discounts to the luncheon (which, in addition to honoring her and her spouse, is also trying to raise funds for the synagogue):
First 20 people to go to the Stanton Street website (www.stantonstreetshul.com) and sign up, can get the half price student rate to hear top klezmorin Jason Rosenblatt and Rachel Lemish at the Orensanz Center do a benefit for another historic shul, namely Stanton Street. They get lunch and chanukah gelt money goes to a good cause. To create a discounted reservation, at the half price rate of $60, in addition to following the website instructions, they should also cc: teshuvah [at] stantonstreetshul.com.
You heard it here first. Yiddish Dance? Historic synagogue honoring two of the hardest working and nicest organizers on the Lower East Side and hear Jason Rosenblatt & Rachel Lemisch? The choice is yours. Both matter!
The Center for Traditional Music and Dance and New York University’s Department of Performance Studies present:
The Yiddish Dance Research Symposium
“Defining Yiddish Dance: Secular, Sacred, Borrowed and Transformed”
Sunday, December 9, 9:30 AM – 5:30 PM
Edgar M. Bronfman Center
New York University
7 East 10th Street
New York, NY 10003
(between 5th Avenue and University Place).
Admission: $10 general public, $5 students/seniors
Scholars wishing to register should RSVP to Center for Traditional Music and Dance’s Pete Rushefsky, 212-571-1555 ext. 36, or email Pete
Continue reading "Yiddish Dance Research Symposium, NYC, Dec 9-10, 2007" »
Living Traditions is proud to announce the 23rd Annual Yiddish Folk Arts Program, KlezKamp, featuring our 2007 theme:
Mame-Loshn: Women in Yiddish Culture
December 23-28, 2007
Continue reading "KlezKamp 2007 announced: Dec 23-28, 2007 - Mame-Loshn: Women in Yiddish Culture" »
Sunday, November 11, 4 PM
Join us for a
Special Boston Jewish Book Fair Event Celebrating the Publication of
"Yiddish Folksongs from the Ruth Rubin Archive"
Featuring live music by the Klezmer Conservatory Band's Hankus Netsky and vocalist Judy Bressler, the screening of Cindy Marshall's award winning short documentary, "A Life of Song: A Portrait of Ruth Rubin" and remarks by editor Mark Slobin
Ticket information: (617)-965-5226
www.lsjcc.org
tickets online
Okay, with luck this is it for the posts on faux nostalgia day on Eldridge St (where a lot of neat people did get together a couple of weeks ago). Suzanne Schwimmer took a nice set of photos and posted them on flickr:
flickr.com/search/? q=great+day+on+eldridge+street
And for those who want more, here is the photo from the "The Villager," from the Oct 17 edition: Klezmer convention blows into town on Eldridge St.
GOT MUSIC ? November 1 DEADLINE for submissions to Shalshelet's Third International Festival.
Shalshelet: The Foundation for New Jewish Liturgical Music is currently accepting submissions for its Third International Festival of New Jewish Liturgical Music. Guidelines and applications are available at www.shalshelet.org/submission.html.
November 1, 2007 is the postmark deadline. The Shalshelet Music Review Committee will announce results on March 1, 2008. The Festival takes place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, June 13 to 16, 2008. Questions: E-mail Shalshelet
First of its kind; worldwide Hanukah parties to take place on December 8
New York NY – October 15, 2007 – Taglit-birthright israel and JDub Records announced today the launch of the first-ever multi-city Hanukkah concert event series. All taking place on December 8, 2007, The Eight (goeight.com) celebrates the Festival of Lights with parties in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco and Washington DC (as well as Tel Aviv, Mumbai, Moscow, and Sydney!) that will feature music from up-and-coming artists handpicked by JDub, multimedia performances, and a unique menorah lighting ceremony at each event.
The 2007 Oyhoo Festival Opening Night World Premier
Saturday, October 20 - 8pm
Kaufmann Concert Hall, 92nd Street Y
A live concert featuring 14 groups each performing one song in the original order of classic motion picture soundtrack of Sholem Aleichem's great tale.
From theatrical legends who have performed the role of Tevye on the stage such as Mike Burstyn or Bruce Adler to the recent Grammy nominated Klezmatics or popular Blue Fringe taking on the material. Imagine the classic song "Matchmaker, Matchmaker" sung by three of the most popular young female Jewish artists on the NY scene for the first time: Basya Schecter of Pharaoh's Daughter, Chana Rothman, and Shira Kline. The Sephardic sounds of Sarah Aroeste to the soulful voice of Neshama Carlebach or Debbie Friedman, the richness of the Jewish music scene is really represented. Even the most popular secular radio friendly pop rock is represented by Jill Sobule. New music from Heedoosh and Good for the Jews is rounded out by the new Klezmer from Greg Wall's Later Prophets, Paul Shapiro's Rib's & Brisket Band, and Frank London's Inebriated Orchestra. 
If there was a "hit single" from the soundtrack, it would have been "If I Were a Rich Man" which will be very unique collaboration between classic version sung by Mike Burstyn mixed and backed up by the Hip Hop of Y-Love and DJ Handler. The show is a production by Michael Dorf.
Check out the rest of the Oyhoo Festival as well—a week long immersion into Jewish music.
From Frank London, via Sam Weiss on the Jewish-Music list:
… after ten years of work, many partial versions, a CD of
the music … we are having the World Premiere of A NIGHT IN THE OLD
MARKETPLACE, the musical that Glen Berger, Alex Aron & I adapted from
Y. L. Peretz' 1907 Yiddish masterpiece. Our version is an insane wild
dark philosophical comedy, with a wild band of the freakiest klezmer
musicians in Philly, an amazing cast, beautiful sets and design,
costumes by ex-Hasidic fashion designer Levi Okunov, animations by
Mornography and Tine Kindermann…. It is huge and exciting. In fact,
I am sitting in the theater teching the show and it is stunningly
beautiful and so much fun.
There are lots of tickets available and info is at the Prince Music Theater website. Previews started September 28 and the show continues until October 21 2007.
The other issue is that, due to circumstances beyond our control, the Prince needs help getting the word out about this show. And that is a shame because it is really good and exciting, and deserves to be seen. We are really trying to make Yiddish Theater that is not nostalgic, not self referential, intelligent, fun, challenging & a bit of the anti-Fiddler. Think Tom Waits or Kurt Weill do klezmer. It is especially interesting to people interested in new Jewish theater and culture.
And here's the pitch: if you can help spread the word it would be appreciated. Forward this email, post it on listserves, anything, Thank you.
Frank
Professors Joel Rubin and James Loeffler have issued a call for papers for a new conference:
Hearing Israel: Music, Culture and History at 60
University of Virginia
April 13-14, 2008
Deadline for submission: October 15, 2007
Continue reading "Call for Papers: "Hearing Israel: Music, Culture and History at 60"" »
A Night in the Old Marketplace
September 28 - October 21 2007
Book and Lyrics by Glen Berger
Music by Frank London
Conceived by Alexandra Aron
Inspired by I.L. Peretz
Klezmer giant and Grammy-winner Frank London and Emmy-winner Glen Berger spin a magic tale set to Klezmer music of spirits who come alive to right an ancient wrong in this fantastic journey to rediscover the meaning of faith.
The Eldridge Street Project brings together more than 75 klezmer musicians from around the globe for "a great day on eldridge street"
Unprecedented Gathering of Klezmer Legends and the World’s Most Influential Klezmorim For Photo Shoot Inspired by the Iconic "Great Day in Harlem" Photo
October 12 Procession and Photograph on the Steps of the Landmark Eldridge Street Synagogue Kicks Off Statewide "Great Day" Tour
Continue reading "Yale Strom kicks off "Great Day on Eldridge Street," Oct 11, 2007" »
Shalshelet: The Foundation for New Jewish Liturgical Music is currently accepting submissions for its Third International Festival of New Jewish Liturgical Music.
Guidelines and applications are available at www.shalshelet.org/submission.html. November 1, 2007 is the postmark deadline. The Shalshelet Music Review Committee will announce results on March 1, 2008. The Festival takes place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, June 13 to 16, 2008. Questions: E-mail Shalshelet
They Called Me Mayer July: Painted Memories of a Jewish Childhood in Poland Before the Holocaust, the result of 40-year collaboration between Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, and her father, Mayer Kirshenblatt, has appeared!
www.mayerjuly.com
Continue reading "Jewish Songs at an Exhibition, SF Bay Area, Sep 5-9" »
We're off to KlezKanada in a few minutes. I'm still a couple of months behind in updating listings, and even farther behind with reviews. But, for the next week, we'll live klezmer and yiddishkeit in the Laurentians.
If all goes well, this year internet connectivity will finally have reached the fabled lands north of Montreal. In that case, you can follow the week's happenings on the KlezKanada blog. See ya'll next week.
Paraphrasing a bit from a recent email from Michael Winograd:
Your help is needed for a very important happening
Carmen Staaf, accordionist from Khevre is putting on a special benefit concert on October 7th (sunday) in Boston at the Lily Pad. It's a benefit for the leukemia and lymphoma foundation.
Although were not really playing anymore, the guys and gals in Khevre thought this was the right time to come together for another show—it will be our first in boston in 2 years, and we really want to spread the word about it.
To help, for for more information, email Michael Winograd.
The internationally renowned and
only annual rural–based summer festival of
yiddish / jewish culture and the arts returns for a 12th year in 2007
Monday August 20th, 2007 (5pm) to Sunday August 26th, 2007
KlezKanada takes place at Camp B'Nai Brith—St. Agathe (Lantier), Quebec MAPQUEST
You can now view and download the 2007 Brochure and Hand-On Workshop descriptions at KlezKanada's website www.klezkanada.com. Assuming visa issues are resolved, the renowned singer, Arkady Gendler, most recently star of the Klezmer Cruise on the Dnieper, will be present.
The 4th Annual KlezMORE Festival Vienna will start on June, 25 and will last till July 8th!
Please look up www.klezmore-vienna.at for more information.
The Weimar Yiddish Summer, runs this year from July 9 through August 9 in Weimar, Germany.
For further information, www.yiddish-summer-weimar.de
The Center for Jewish Music of the Jewish Community Center of St.
Petersburg is proud to announce "KlezFest St. Petersburg 2007," an
international seminar on the traditional music of Eastern European
Jewry, to be held July 8-12, 2007 in St. Petersburg, Russia.
For more information, please contact the Jewish Community Center of St. Petersburg via email or visit our site www.klezfest.ru.
Bob Weiner posted about this one:
If you can make it to NYC's Lincoln Center, don't miss this Molly Picon exhibition from June 26 through September 22, 2007 at the NYPL for the Performing Arts, curated by Dr. Diane Cypkin.
Information on the exhibition and 3 related programs can be found by following the link below: www.nypl.org/research/calendar/exhib/lpa/lpaexhibdesc.cfm?id=446
The Women Cantor’s Network will hold its annual conference and 25th year celebration at Congregation Beth El in Sudbury, MA from Sunday, June 10 – Wednesday, June 13, 2007. All women cantors, cantorial soloists, service leaders, cantorial students, educators and women who have a strong interest in synagogue music are welcomed. This year’s conference theme is “Even Higher: The Cantor as Spiritual Leader through Life’s Rhythms and Rituals” and will include a performance of the acclaimed play, the “The Mikveh Monologues”, which is open to the public on Monday, June 11 at 7:30 p.m. at Beth El. Tickets may be purchased at 978-443-9622. The conference will feature many of Boston’s most renowned Jewish scholars, rabbis and musicians. Conference registration is $190 before May 7th and $225 by June 3rd. One-day registration, student rates and reduced hotel rates are available. Visit www.womencantors.net www.womencantors.net for registration materials and information.
The Parizer yidish-tsenter - Medem Bibliotek is pleased to inform all the Klezmer Music lovers that this year, our workshop "KLEZMER-PARIS 2007" is going to be organised from July, 2 to 6.
The information an application form can be found on this link :
www.yiddishweb.com/Parisklezmer2007/Parisklezmer2007.html
Moshe Berlin posted dates for this year's Tzfat Klezmer Festival, held annually in Israel. Since the organization that arranges the festival tends to be short on web savvy, this (and the entries that will go on the KlezmerShack calendar) may be as much information as you can get without actually being in Israel.
"As far as it is known now the Zfat festival this year will be on 13 - 15 of August"
Progressive Summer Programme:
Shalosh R'galim –Three Pilgrim Festivals
A four-day intensive workshop for synagogue musicians on the music of Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot.
Monday 2 July – Thursday 5 July 2007
Daily 10.30am – 5.30pm
Leo Baeck College The Sternberg Centre for Judaism
80 East End Road , Finchley, London , N3 2SY
For further information: www.jmi.org.uk/synagoguemusic/events/07_summer_progressive.html
Continue reading "A plethora of JMI summer offerings: cantorial, klezmer, yiddish" »
The internationally renowned and
only annual rural–based summer festival of
yiddish / jewish culture and the arts returns for a 12th year in 2007
Monday August 20th, 2007 (5pm) to Sunday August 26th, 2007
KlezKanada takes place at Camp B'Nai Brith—St. Agathe (Lantier), Quebec MAPQUEST
Registration forms are now online at www.klezkanada.com
Metropolitan Klezmer's new all-live CD will be released in time for Passover!
Please email for details, we'll be posting the info soon.
Our official CD release party will be Wednesday, April 4th at Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction, 34 Avenue A, NYC 7pm show, $7... and that's the third night of Pesakh, but we expect the discs to be ready a week before.
Columbia University School of the Arts announces that
JOHN ZORN
is the 2007 recipient of the William Schuman Award
Columbia's MILLER THEATRE hosts concert and award ceremony
Thursday, April 26, 8:00PM
[Of special interest in this regard is John Zorn's recent reposting (posting?) of Radical Jewish Culture. ari]
Continue reading "John Zorn to receive William Schuman Award, NYC, Apr 26" »
Art Bailey reports to the Jewish-Music list on the latest Frank London project:
… I'll take this opportunity to shill for Frank London (as if he needs it at this point) and mention that he's releasing a new cd that I play on called "A Night in the Old Marketplace", which is a new Jewish musical. Music by Frank, lyrics by Glen Berger, vocals by a cast of thousands including Lorin Sklamberg and Joanne Borts. Also featuring lister Ron "Vodka" Caswell, Brandon "Eraserhead" Seabrook, and Aaron "Aaron" Alexander. Cd release party on March 26, in NYC, info here:
www.barrowstreettheatre.com/specialEvents.asp#marketplace
It's so good that I think it might just become your new favorite. More on the KlezmerShack calendar
Boy, do I have fond memories of the Jewish Music Festival from my years living in the San Francisco Bay area. From my first time hearing exotic-to-me Jewish music from Bukhara and points east, to the first times I saw the Klezmatics and Brave Old World, to one very erotic encounter that began one of my more memorable relationships … to conversations with Festival founder, Ursula Sherman, z"l. Jewish music just does that to me.
This year's line-up is pretty exciting. I am so very jealous that Klezmer en Buenos Aires is appearing, as are Pharaoh's Daughter and a host of others. If you are in the Bay Area, or have a way to get these this coming month, that's the place to be.
For more information: www.jewishmusicfestival.org. Tell festival director Ellie Shapiro that the KlezmerShack sent you. We've known each other for about 30 years. I can tell you that she has good taste in friends and music :-).
Dear friends of all things Jewish,
Let My People Sing will feature 7 world class concerts in the Los Angeles area from March 7-11.
The programs will feature music by Golem, The Afro-Semitic Experience, Theodore Bikel, Gidi Gov, Danny Sanderson, Junoon, Pharaoh's Daughter, Debbie Friedman, Julie Silver, Jason Alexander and over a dozen other artists. This years festival is dedicated toward raising funds or Jewish World Watch an organization which brings relief to the people of Darfur.
I would grateful if you would please pass on this link to family and friends in the Southern California area.
Craig Taubman
www.letmypeoplesing.com
I am occupied with my own event early on Saturday evening this week, but when it is over and I have played the last bit of klezmer or new Yiddish song, I intend to wander over to a place near Temple Beth Zion and check out something advertised as a "Save Darfur! Sing for Justice and Joy!" What reasonable person could say no?
You can find out more about the house at www.kavodhouse.com. And if you're sold on the idea of the concert or just curious about Minna Bromberg, do join me by rsvping to Alyson Solomon.
Dear Friends, tayere fraynd,
KlezKamp 22 is almost here!! We are in the midst of our intensive preparations for this annual event and if you have not yet signed up, it's not too late! There is room for even more of you to join our wonderful KlezKamp community at the premier Yiddish folk arts and music festival, December 24-26, 2006 at the Hudson Valley Resort & Spa in upstate New York. More information about attending KlezKamp may be found at the KlezKamp homepage.
We have added a few new features that will be of interest to you:
Continue reading "KlezKamp 22 - begins Dec 24-26 - still a few slots!" »
Having seen Shirim the night before, Thursday night you can catch my favorite Montreal band, Shtreiml, whose latest CD fuses harmonica-driven klezmer with amazing Turkish music, plus punk-lounge Yiddishists "Golem," SoCalled—the hottest DJ in Yiddishland, whose new CD is burning up the charts in France, the LeeVees have recently been added, too + the rest of the holiday noise system. It's a holiday. If you don't see them now, then when?:
Jewltide in Boston
Thurs. Dec. 21
TT The Bears
www.ttthebears.com
$10 On Sale Now / $12 Day of Show / 18+ / Doors 8:30 PM
Featuring Golem + SoCalled + Heeb Magazine + Shtreiml
Continue reading "Incredible concert in Boston area, option 2" »
I'm going to be out of town, but I want to be sure that word gets out about this event on Wednesday. Shirim, everyone knows—on their own account, this would be a "must see" show. But the Yiddish singer from Berlin is getting plaudits all over the place. So, a chance to see your usual amazing Boston klezmer band, and see a new singer and find out what all the buzz is about:
Come dance to the Klezmer Nutcracker at Johnny D’s (17 Holland St., Somerville, MA, 617-776-2004) on Wednesday, December 20, 8:30pm, performed by your favorite klezmer band, Shirim. Warming up will be Yiddish acoustic pop singer from Berlin, Germany, Fabian Schnedler. Tickets are $10.
The band will also premiere their new Hannukah tune “Oy, Hannukah, Oy” and some other tunes appropriate to the season. Dancing will be encouraged, especially to the Klezmer Nutcracker movements: “Kozatsky ‘til you Dropsky,” “Waltz of the Ruggelah,” and “Dance of the Latkes Queen.”
Continue reading "Incredible concert in Boston area, option 1" »
Yiddish Voice of Love: Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman
Thu, Oct 26, 2006, 8:00pm, Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street
Kaufmann Concert Hall
Code: T-TC5JW11-01
Price: $30.00 All Sections / For tickets
Check out the KlezmerShack calendar for more details.
Continue reading "Reminder: Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman featured in Zev Feldman program this week" »
a correspondent, Scott, writes in to say:
I wanted to let you know that the world premiere of A Journey of Spirit, the award-winning independent documentary on wsinger/songwriter Debbie Friedman, will air on two consecutive Sundays, October 15th and 22nd at 7 a.m. ET/PT (6 a.m. CT) on Hallmark Channel. A Journey of Spirit which won the best film award from the National Council for Jewish Women, and the Detroit Jewish Film Festival award for best new Jewish film, among others, chronicles the inspirational story of Ms. Friedman and how she has affected contemporary Jewish music.
Also, if you are interested in seeing the trailer, please feel free to visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=m41tOXdMsl4
Dear Friends & Colleagues,
I'd like to let everyone know that Yiddish Summer Weimar is presenting our first ever "Winter Edition" from February 3-8, consisting of two Master Classes: the Yiddish Vocal Master Class, for both vocalists and accompanists, is being conducted by Yefim Chorny and Susanna Ghergus, and the Yiddish Instrumental Music Master Class is being conducted by Alan Bern and Christian Dawid. Both classes are intended to address the relative lack of professional-level coaching in our field, so they are restricted to professionals or very advanced students. To make sure we keep the focus at that level we're asking people to audition with recordings. Class size is limited to 17. For more information, please see www.yiddish-summer-weimar.de, click on the graphic that says Winter Edition, and please help us spread the word!
Thanks,
Alan Bern
It's a big day in NYC. By now, most readers in that area of the world are probably down at Riverside park where the wrapup to the OyHoo Jewish Music festival wraps up all afternoon with a free outdoor finale. This year it features Israeli hip-hop artist Hadag Nachash, David Broza, Neshama Carlebach, Pharaoh's Daughter, Yosi Piamenta, SoCalled and more.
And then the big deal: the benefit concert/dance/celebration in memory of German Goldenshteyn:
Sunday Sept 17th, at SouthPaw, 125 Fifth Ave, Brooklyn, 7 PM doors, 8 PM concert/dance party
Tickets $30 at the door, $25 in advance - go to metpo.com/tickets
All proceeds go to the familyThe lineup:
Alicia Svigals, Pete Sokolow, Aaron Alexander, Margot Leverett, David Licht, Susan Watts, Cookie Segelstein, Rachel Lemisch, Sarah Ferholdt, Dan Blacksberg, Michael Winograd, Jeff Perlman, Audrey Wright, Mark Rubin (all the way from Austin, TX!), Timothy Quigley, Joey Weisenberg, Adrian Banner, Amy Zakar, Jeff Warschauer, Deb Strauss, and many more!
The Yiddish Folk Arts Program
December 24-29, 2006
Hudson Valley Resort & Spa
Kerhonkson, NY
www.klezkamp.org
Continue reading "קלעזקעמפּ 22 KlezKamp announced: Dec 24-29, Kerhonkson, NY" »
Walter Zev Feldman, known both for his scholarly contributions to Jewish Music history and for his performances and teaching of Jewish music and dance, is artistic director of "Music and Dance of Jewish Traditions: Songs of Love & Longing," a new series at NYC's 92nd St. Y this fall/winter.
The first concert kicks off on October 26th, "Yiddish Voice of Love: Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman". The series continues with "Memories of Spain", featuring the band Arboleas, on Wed, Nov 29, 2006, and "Women of the East" with Kol Oud Tof and Pharaoh's Daughter, on Wed, Jan 17.
This was a good Ashkenaz. It doesn't have that edge that the early festivals had, but Mitch Smolkin managed to pull together an incredibly diverse festival, one that contained a lot to please the crowds, but which also provided a neat snapshot of Jewish music, primarily of that side of Jewish music that derives primarily from Eastern Europe. It was the sort of festival where we went from Marilyn Lerner and Adrienne Cooper presenting Anna Margolin's poetry in a new, avantgarde artsong setting, to two sessions featuring MacArthur grantee Ben Katchor, to Israeli Sephardic phenomenon Yasmin Levy. And that doesn't begin to encompass the diversity of what we saw. At the finale, Mitch introduced his stepping down, and his replacement, charged with outdoing all of this in 2008, KlezKanada staffer and Beyond the Pale bandleader Eric Stein. It would be hard to imagine a better choice.
In terms of trends, I have to note that in addition to the Lerner-Cooper artsong, one of the festival's few "edge" moments, Teresa Tova had a release party for a CD of living Yiddish poet/songwriter Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman's songs; Lenka Lichtenberg and Brian Katz had a release party for a new CD of settings of the poetry of Simcha Simchovitch; while poet Adeena Karasick presented her own work in a multimedia show; and Adrienne Cooper (who led the singers in the Ashkenaz parade and brought a show about painter Marc Chagall to the festival) hosted new settings of Yiddish poetry in settings created by young artists in Eastern Europe. This feels like the largest collection of new Yiddish music in one place at one time, maybe in my lifetime.
So, what are you doing this weekend? We're going to Toronto for Ashkenaz! If we lived there, we'd already be enjoying the fun.
A bountiful outpouring of music, theatre, art, dance, literature, cabaret and film will take place from August 29 through September 4 at the Harbourfront Centre, with special events at Earl Bales Park and the Miles Nadal jcc.
Colourful events like the pageant and parade created by the award-winning Shadowland Theatre, Kabbalah yoga and dramatic Havdallah rituals evoke the special nature of the festival, which melds the traditional spirit of Eastern Europe with the new, radical art being created in a contemporary resurgence of Jewish culture.
Most events are free. Click here to see the entire Ashkenaz 2006 schedule.
Some special events will require a ticket, including Retro Ashkenaz, with festival favorites Klezmer en Buenos Aires and Les Yeux Noirs, on Thursday, August 31. Click here for information on all the ticketed events.
This Tuesday, July 11, 2006
7:00PM - 10:00PM Israel time
12:00PM - 3:00PM Eastern Standard Time
Live from Tzvat for the annual Tzvat Klezmer Music Festival! Join us in the city of the birthplace of the Kabballah. Music from Giora Fiedman, Aaron Razel, Moussa Berlin, and more. Hosted by Benyamin Bresky of The Beat and Walter Bingham of Walter's World.
Tune in on www.IsraelNationalRadio.com
Continue reading "Live from Tzfat Klezmerfest Tues, Jul 11" »
For all those who haven't been paying attention to some exciting organizing happening in Vienna, I point out that today is the first day of the 3rd KlezMORE festival, which kicks off at the Porgy and Bess club. The levels of irony abound, given that those deracinated Jewish intellectuals who abhorred Klezmer and overtly Eastern European Jewish culture, who were so fond of the Vienna coffeehouses until the arrival of Hitler and their destruction, now get a sort of revenge (albeit, not one that they would all have appreciated) as out Jewish culture takes over the town for a couple of weeks, and starts off in a club named for a Jewish-written opera about another non-Aryan culture the Nazis abhorred. The festival organizers possibly think of this differently:
3rd KlezMORE Festival
July 2-16
Vienna, Austria
Festival-info: +43(0)676 - 512 91 04
www.klezmore-vienna.at
Run, do not walk, to the KlezKanada.com site to register
for the 2006 internationally renowned festival of
Yiddish/Jewish culture and the arts! This year's schedule is now up.
Located at Camp B'nai Brith, St. Agathe (Lantier, Quebec, it is held from Sunday, Aug.20-Sunday, Aug.27, 2006. Details for registration and programs on website. Space is limited and filling up quickly. Hurry to make KK reservations to ensure accommodations and transportation arrangements!
You can download the KlezKanada registration form and/or KlezKanada scholarship application form.
[I, Mr. KlezmerShack, am already signed up to take the daily newsletter and camp blog to new heights. If you are interested in being part of this particular project, email me right after you register!]
*Please note that KlezKanada 2006 will now take place over a full week for all participants
Another entry in the "most major cities, other than Boston, seem to be celebrating the diversity of Jewish culture with regular music festivals on an annual basis" department. Washington, DC, seems to do a nice job—and there doesn't seem to be a problem here (just as there is no problem in Berkeley, CA or other cities) with the JCC being the appropriate community host. Hmmmm.
The Seventh Annual Washington Jewish Music Festival
Rhythm en Route
May 16 through May 24
A diverse musical journey filled with tunes and artists from the far corners of the world and those close to home. Tickets are on sale now!
Click here for the Festival line-up
Klezmer Paris 2006
à Paris du 6 au 10 juillet 2006
Paris, July 6 to 10, 2006
Bibliothèque Medem-Maison de la Culture Yiddish
18, passage saint-Pierre Amelot
75011 Paris
Tél : 01 47 00 14 00
Fax : 01 47 00 14 47
E-mail : medem@yiddishweb.com
The Center for Jewish Music of the Jewish Community Center of St. Petersburg is proud to announce "KlezFest St. Petersburg 2006," an international seminar on the traditional music of Eastern European Jewry, to be held June 17-22, 2006 in St. Petersburg, Russia.
For more information, please contact the Jewish Community Center of
St. Petersburg via email or visit our site
www.klezfest.ru.
Phones: +7 812 713 3889, 571 6440
For advice on travel and visa arrangements, contact our American sponsor, the Jewish Community Development Fund in Russia and Ukraine, a project of the American Jewish World Service (New York), via telephone: (+1-212) 273-1642, or AJWS New York.
Continue reading "Klezfest 2006 in St. Petersburg, Russia, Jun 17-22, 2006" »
Many of the top names in Jewish music will be performing at
the inaugural New Orleans International Jewish Music Festival. The two-day gathering is a
celebration of Jewish culture and rebuilding of the New Orleans Jewish community after Hurricane
Katrina. The festival will be held April 1 starting at 8 p.m. at The Howlin’ Wolf and April 2 beginning at
noon at Tulane University’s McAlister Hall.
From the always-active Geraldine of JMI:
Dear All, I am sure you would enjoy these events if you could be around London —Geraldine
Violins, Sephardi Songbook and Klezmerpolitan Music ... a great fortnight or so (10 March - 2 April) for Jewish music in London.
Ring JMI Tel 020 8909 2445 Fax 020 8909 1030 or see Website www.jmi.org.uk for more information.
Continue reading "A great fortnight of Jewish music in London!" »
Festival of Yiddish Music, Dance, Song and Language in
Weimar, Germany. From 11th of July to 10th of August 2006.
Workshops with Alan Bern, Zev Feidman, Michael Alpert,
Arkadi Gendler and many more.
For further information take a look at www.yiddish-summer-weimar.de
This is an incredible set of workshops, and they tend to fill up, so register now and make plans to be there!
In case no one has noticed, the 8th Annual College Klezmer Klezmerpalooza is taking place at Brown University, in Providence, today. Last night there was a concert that included David Krakauer and DJ SoCalled. Today is workshops, music, and jam sessions. If you're in the area, and you're college age, this is the event to check out:
www.klezmershack.com/calendar/003599.php or www.brownhillel.org/students/events/event.2005-10-25.9771950368
As the dates approach for the Klezmer Conservatory Band reunion + Mini Jewish Music festival (Mar 25-26), we finally have final info on the Sunday workshops for the fest. In addition to the workshops and the concerts, there will also be information tables and possibly other activities in the JCC lobby. See ya'll in about three weeks:
(And if you are interested in volunteering on Sunday, do email me; if you can help fund this festival, do contact the Leventhal-Sidman JCC
Continue reading "Workshop Schedule set for final KlezmerShack 10th Anniversary Concert" »
This is one of those events that feels like it will be great fun, and that it matters. It's happening here in my town
SEE, HEAR, FEEL THE MUSIC: JAZZARTSIGNS MARCH 9 IN BOSTON
Making Live Jazz Accessible To All People With and Without Disabilities
WHAT: JazzArtSigns, acclaimed vocalist Lisa Thorson's groundbreaking multimedia, multisensory and interactive improvised jazz performance piece for all audiences. JazzArtSigns features a group of world-class jazz musicians, an improvisational painter, American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters, a live audio describer and text captioner, as well as program information in Braille, large print and on tape. What makes this event groundbreaking is that everyone involved - the band, ASL interpreters and painter - trade fours and improvise.
WHEN JazzArtSIgns Concert Thursday, March 9, 2006 at 7:30 p.m. at the Wheelock Family
/WHERE: Theatre, 200 The Riverway, Boston.
TICKETS: $20; $10 students. Voice: 617-879-2300 * TTY: 617-879-2150.
Continue reading "Jazz for all of us, regardless of physical ability" »
The internationally renowned and
only annual rural–based summer festival of
yiddish / jewish culture and the arts returns for a 11th year in 2006
Sunday August 20th, 2006 (5pm) to Sunday August 27th, 2006
KlezKanada takes place at Camp B'Nai Brith—St. Agathe (Lantier), Quebec MAPQUEST
You can download the KlezKanada registration form and/or KlezKanada scholarship application form.
[I, Mr. KlezmerShack, am already signed up to take the daily newsletter and camp blog to new heights. If you are interested in being part of this particular project, email me right after you register!]
*Please note that KlezKanada 2006 will now take place over a full week for all participants
"Let My People Sing:" a
groundbreaking Passover festival celebrating freedom, Jewish life, art and culture
will be in Los Angeles, April 8-16, 2006.
For nine days, Los Angeles will celebrate the glory of Passover. From a Celebrity Seder featuring Danny Glover, Debbie Friedman, Jon Voight and many others to FaithJAM '06, an Interfaith concert of Muslim, Christian and Jewish artists, "Let My People Sing" will bring together tens of thousands of people eager for a unique and inspiring experience. Over ten events city-wide will feature Israeli Super group Hadag Nachash, Rick Recht, Black Jewish Gospel Artist Joshua Nelson, Frank London, Kings of Klezmer and more!
To View our Flash Promo Movie (Turn up the volume!) Click here: Let My People Sing
For further info: Tel: 818-760-1077
Web: www.letmypeoplesing.com/main.html
All I know is that Josh Dolgin (DJ SoCalled) is involved, so it is likely to be fun:
A May 2007 cruise down the Dnieper River from Kiev, through
the Crimean to Odessa, combining klezmer on board and on
shore with lectures, films, visits to major sites and
personal excursions to old villages and shtetles.
Participation in jam sessions and dance is encouraged.
Website: www.magma.ca/~klezmercruise. Early registration
discount.
In case anyone missed this, I thought I'd repost: Should be a killer concert, and if they're not sold out now, they will be. ari
The Klezmatics
perform "20 Years Live!" Concert
Town Hall NYC
Sunday, March 5, show-time is 4 PM
(NY, NY): The Klezmatics, NYC's eccentric Jewish Folk Music renegades, are working on twenty years of existence and are celebrating with a special performance at the famed Town Hall on Sunday, March 5, 2006. Tickets are available at www.ticketmaster.com.
Tel:(212) 840-2824
www.the-townhall-nyc.org/
Continue reading ""20 Years Live!" for the Klezmatics, NYC, Town Hall, Mar 5" »
Saturday, March 25, 8pm
Sunday, March 26: workshops 1-3:30; concert 4pm
Special Guests include:
Michael Alpert
Rosalie Gerut
Deborah Strauss
Jeff Warschauer
I am most embarrassed to note that I haven't said anything in months (possibly ever) about the grand finale to the KlezmerShack 10th anniversary—a KCB Revival reunion, accompanied by a slew of workshops. You can find out more on our calendar, or a the Leventhal-Sidman JCC site.
The important thing to note at the moment, is that we will need volunteers to help during the event. Like other 10th Anniversary Events (including a concert at the beginning of the celebration, last spring, at the JCC) this may sell out, so get tickets early, and if you can help out, Please send me e-mail.
And, between now and March 25th and 26th, expect to hear lots more about this event.
c/o Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center
1414 Walnut Street
Berkeley, California 94709
510-848-0237 x126
www.brjcc.org/jcc/jewish_music_festival.htm
E-mail Berkeley-Richmond Jewish Community Center.
Continue reading "21st Berkeley Jewish Music Festival, Berekeley, CA, 4-26 Mar 2006" »
I am months behind in announcing a mailing list maintained by Anna Smirnitskaya of Jewish music events in Moscow. She sent me a list of events for October that I never got posted. But you needn't rely on me for that information. Instead, E-mail email Anna to subscribe to the list, yourself.
On 23-24 November, 2005 the "KlezmerShock!" First
International Festival will be held in Minsk, Belarus.
The concerts will take place at the Trade Unions Palace of
Culture (Dvorets Kultury Profsoyuzov) in Minsk. Address:
Prospekt Nezavisimosti 25.
The prices for admittance range from 9,000 to 27,000
Belarusian rubles (USD 4,40 12,50).
"KlezmerShock!" is organized by the ClassClub concert
agency, the oldest enterprise company on the Belarusian
show market.
tel: +375172275930
http://www.class-club.com
Continue reading "First "KlezmerShock", Minsk, Belarus, Nov 23-24" »
Song of the Lodz Ghetto
In Yiddish, with English Supertitles
Saturday, October 15, 8:00 pm
JCCSF, 3200 California St. at Presidio Ave.
Tickets: Members $20 | Public $25 | Students $15
Box Office: (415) 292-1233
Box Office hours: Monday - Friday, 12:00 pm - 7:00 pm; Saturday, 12:00 pm - 5:00 pm.
Click here to purchase tickets online.
KLEZMER PARIS 2005
October 22-26
Klezmer workshop
Programme: Vocal, dance and instrumental workshops, masterclasses, lectures, jam sessions…
Information and registration:
Maison de la culture Yiddish Bibliotheque Medem
18, passage Saint-Pierre Amelot
F-75011 PARIS
Tel. 00 33 (0)1 47 00 14 00 /Fax: 00 33 (0)1 47 00 14 47
Site: www.yiddishweb.com
the 2nd International Jewish Music festival-seminar in Moscow
The Moscow Centre of Culture and Education "Euro-Class" announces the 2nd International Jewish Music festival-seminar "Dona-Fest, 2006" which will take place in Moscow from March 12-17, 2006.
For more information:
Center «Euro-Class», 115093, Moscow, Stremyanniy per.,
33/35, Russia
call (007 095) 764-42-21 (Anatoly
Pinsky)
E-mail Dona Dona Fest
www.dona-dona.ru
Continue reading "Dona Fest/Moscow announced: March 12-17, 2006" »
Come join us in a workshop of a new piece of musical theatre, based on Sholem Aleichem’s comic monologue Gitl Purishkevitsh. Set in Russia in 1907, Gitl Purishkevitsh is about a widowed tea peddler who manages to outwit the leading anti-Semite of the day, and save her shlemazl of a son from the Czar’s army.
Music Ensemble for instrumentalists—led by Hankus Netsky and Josh Waletzky. This is the hands-on exploration of music from the new musical. We will explore orchestration, theatre performance style, the art of accompanying singers, and the challenge of playing music on-stage, in character.
Acting Ensemble for actors and singers—led by Joanne Borts and Jenny Levison. This is the hands-on exploration of scenes from the new musical. We will explore the text, staging, solo and ensemble performance, and music.
Go to www.klezkanada.com for more information.
Scholarship opportunities available for people under 30. All ages and all levels are welcome. These ensembles will be in primarily in English.
the 2nd International Jewish Music festival-seminar in Moscow
DONA-FEST, March 2006
The Moscow Centre of Culture and Education "Euro-Class" announces the 2nd International Jewish Music festival-seminar "Dona-Fest, 2006" which will take place in Moscow from March, 2006 (dates to be confirmed). "Dona Fest" will take place in some of the most prestigious concert halls in Moscow and will include appearances by the most esteemed performers of Jewish music in Russia, the CIS and the Baltic states, as well as foreign stars of Klezmer. Along with the concert programme, "Dona Fest" will also include an International music seminar, which will be lead by the leading specialists in the field of Jewish music and culture (Klezmer music, Yiddish songs, etc.) The seminar programme includes:
For more info: Center Euro-Class
tel: (007 095) 764-42-21
Moscow, Russia 115093
www.dona-dona.ru
E-mail Center Euro-Class
the Rozhinke Retreat
Reclaiming the Cantorial Art for the 21st Century
AUGUST 21-24, 2005
Kutshers Country Club, New York
Now in its third year, the "Rozhinke Retreat" is an effort to preserve and continue the great Cantorial art tradition of yesteryear. At the turn of the Millenium, we have seen many Jewish cultural revivals: Yiddish, Klezmer... and Hazzanut is due a revival of its own. This retreat has its roots in the great Cantorial stylings of such renowned Hazzanim as Yossele Rosenblatt, David Kousevitsky, Zavel Kwartin and many others—with an emphasis not on historical examination, but rather living reproduction of an art form which is so intrinsically Jewish, and so passionate, so filled with pathos and sweetness, that it can only be described as "Rozhinke"—the sweet sound of raisins and almonds.
KlezKanada's 10th anniversary is scheduled to begin, for workshop participants, on Sunday, August 21,2005 and extends to Sunday August 28,2005. This includes all scholarship recipients.
Those who are not involved with workshops begin on Wednesday, August 24, 2005 and continue to Sunday, August 28, 2005 also.
A special feature this year is the introduction of a so-called "East Meets West" expansion of the scholarship program. That is 10-12 young, talented artists from Eastern Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Moldavia and Belarus are being invited to join their Western compatriots and participate in the week-long scholarship program. This represents a dramatic new development and hopefully will encourage increasing interchange between the countries of Eastern Europe and the West.
Other exciting and new programs for this 10th anniversary are presently being finalized and will be seen on the KlezKanada website (www.klezkanada.com) in early May. [I can say that Judy and I will be part of the faculty, again. There will be a daily Yiddish-English newspaper, along with some incredible new Yiddish language and Arts stuff, as well. Ari]
For further information contact KlezKanada:
E-mail KlezKanada
Tel: 514-489-9014
Fax: 514-489-0260
Come Celebrate the Rebirth of Klezmer Music in the Former
Soviet Union at the 6th Annual KlezFest, Ukraine!
August 21-25, 2005
Kiev, Ukraine
Musicians and non-musicians alike are invited to join several dozen extremely talented musicians from Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus and Estonia as they explore the folk music of their ancestors.
The Center for Jewish Music of the Jewish Community Center of St. Petersburg is proud to announce "KlezFest St. Petersburg 2005," an international seminar on the traditional music of Eastern European Jewry, to be held June 18-22, 2005 in St. Petersburg, Russia.
For more information, please contact the Jewish Community Center of St. Petersburg via fax at (+7-812) 314-5117, or e-mail Alexander Frenkel.
Continue reading "KlezFest, St. Petersburg, Jun 18-22, 2005" »
Once again, the Old City of Safed will host an international group of musicians, for the Second Annual Clarinet and Klezmer in the Galilee program of Clarinet Master Classes and Performances, Aug 15-22, 2005. This year's program will be under the Artistic Directorship of Giora Feidman, Master Klezmer and Classical Clarinetist. The ever-popular Safed Klezmer Festival will follow, from Aug 23-25.
For informationn: www.safedfound.org.il
(caution: it seems mildly easier to navigate this very buggy website with IE)
This is the sort of thing that makes me so jealous. One day, perhaps Jews in Boston will support Jewish arts and culture, as well (and don't hesitate to write the Combined Jewish Philanthropies here to ask them to help initiate and to support such events, www.cjp.org:
The 20th Annual Jewish Music Festival, March 19- April 3 The largest festival of Jewish music in the US celebrates its landmark anniversary in Berkeley, San Francisco and Marin. Highlights include members of Israel's East West Ensemble with the Omar Faruk Tekbilek Ensemble, Theodore Bikel with Hankus Netsky, the Klezmatics with Joshua Nelson, Community Music Day with an Instrument Petting Zoo, Hebrew hip-hop, and workshops for all ages; Judith Cohen, a leading scholar of Sephardic music, and Emil Zrihan, an extraordinary Israeli counter-tenor and cantor of the Moroccan tradition in a sneak preview of a new work with America's leading, San Francisco based new music string quartet.
Tickets and Info: 415-276-1511 or www.brjcc.org
15% discount for groups of 10 and more.
A project of the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center
Wednesday February 2, 7:30pm
Bravo! Television Network (Rogers channel 40 in Toronto)
Featuring David’s four Bravo!FACT-funded short films.
Eric Stein writes:
I would like to express thanks on behalf of myself and my family for the overwhelming amount of condolences we have received since my brother David's tragic death on December 12. His loss is incredibly painful to us, but knowing the impact he made in this world makes us proud. David lived a very full life. In his 34 years he experienced and accomplished more than many people do in a lifetime. He was truly one-of-a-kind. Soulful, warm-hearted, charismatic, adventurous, creative, intelligent, talented, funny...the list goes on. David followed his dreams and inspired and touched so many peoples lives, including many in the Jewish cultural world. From my own perspective, aside from him being an amazing big brother, role model, and friend, I owe David for my current career – it was his interest in Yiddish culture and music that ultimately led me to pursue my musical career in klezmer.
It would take me thousands more words to adequately pay tribute to my brother. In lieu of that, I want to at least announce that there will be a tribute broadcast in Canada on Bravo! TV on February 2, 7:30pm est (4:30pm pst) featuring 4 of David’s short films, 2 of which I was privileged to contribute music to with Beyond the Pale. Details are on the KlezmerShack calendar. Many other memorial efforts are being planned, including tributes at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival in May and at KlezKanada in August. My family and I also have ambitious plans for lasting memorial tributes to David, including an endowment or awards of some kind for young artists involved in Jewish culture. If anyone would like to help honour David’s memory and keep his spirit alive, please donate to David’s memorial fund (info below). And if you have personal stories or remembrances of David that you would like to share we would be very happy to hear them.
David A. Stein Memorial Donations c/o The Benjamin Foundation
3429 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6A 2C3
Tel: (416) 780-0324 Fax: (416) 780-0638
E-mail David A. Stein Memorial
Web: www.benjamins.ca/Static/foundation/default.htm
New England Conservatory
School of Continuing Education Spring 2005
Yelena Neplok, Instructor
10 Wednesdays: 7:00–8:30 P.M.
February 2, 2005April 13, 2005
This program, encompassing Jewish classical and folk traditions, introduces the unique musical heritage stemming from Jewish composers and their communities in pre-war Eastern Europe.
For more info: see the International Jewish Music Calendar
Mark your calendars!
On My Grandmother's KneeSaturday, January 22, 8pm
Sunday, January 23, 2pm
Featuring
The National Spiritual Ensemble
and
A Besere Velt: Yiddish Community Chorus of the Workmen’s Circle
With special guests
Hankus Netsky and Adrienne Cooper
Two stunning vocal ensembles come together to present a soul-stirring concert of music. Performances are Saturday, January 22 at 8pm and Sunday, January 23 at 2pm.
Performances will be held at the Leventhal-Sidman Jewish Community Center, 333 Nahanton Street in Newton.
Tickets are $22 adult, $24 senior and $12 for children 18 and under.
For ticket information contact the JCC Box Office at 617-965-5226. Web: lsjcc.org
Casting notice for our Spring Mainstage production "On Second Avenue" Starring Mike Burstyn. Would it be possible to post this anywhere the Yiddish/Klezmer community would see it? We are looking for singer/actor/dancers.
Gabriel Feinberg
Folksbiene Yiddish Theatre
212.213.2120
The Folksbiene Yiddish Theatre is casting "On Second Avenue", a music revue starring Mike Burstyn.
Auditions 1/6
callbacks 1/7
rehearsals start 1/24
first preview 2/20
closes 4/10.
Director: Bryna Wasserman
Musical director: Zalmen Mlotek.
Males—strong musical theater singing background. All ranges needed.
Females—strong musical theater singing background. Belters and legit needed. Must have ability to sing convincingly in Yiddish.
(Note: If you speak Yiddish but are not right for any of the above roles, please submit anyway, as we are casting other projects as well.) Please note Yiddish skills on submission. Please bring an uptempo and a ballad to your appointment.
Send a.s.a.p. to Casting, Folksbiene Yiddish Theater, 45 East 33rd St., New York, NY 10016.
AEA SPECIAL AGREEMENT CONTRACT
This year, Make it a real holiday -
Come explore the riches of Yiddish culture -
Farbreng mit undz oyf yidish
The California Institute for Yiddish Culture & Language announces its
5th Annual Winter Yiddish Intensive:
The Art of Yiddish: A Bridge of Light Around the World
Di Kunst fun Yidish: A likht-brik arum der velt
December 19-25, Los Angeles (at Skirball Cultural Center)
www.yiddishinstitute.org
E-mail Yiddish Institute.
Come for the week, for a day (December 19), or attend individual cultural
events.
It was a concert worth driving two hours each way for as Canada's famed jazz pianist Marilyn Lerner (Flying Bulgars, duos with David Wall, etc.) met New York City's groundbreaking klezmer fiddler Alicia Svigals halfway at the National Yiddish Book Center last night. Those present had come primarily to hear Svigals who was as incendiary and amazing as usual, and who was matched by the incomparable Lerner on piano. The two performed klezmer standards, each other's pieces, and even did some improvisation based on audience request. People kept looking at each other, "did you hear that"?
I mention this especially because the two are meeting up with the renowned Adrienne Cooper tonight at Satalla, in NYC. This should be one of the amazing concerts of the season. All three have played together in various ensembles (Cooper and Svigals are both in the acclaimed "Mikveh" all-women's ensemble; Cooper has frequently sung with Toronto's Flying Bulgars, which also features Lerner, who has done much Yiddish art song, a category in which Cooper excels, with David Wall, also of the Bulgars. So, klezmer, Yiddish song, art song, and jazz and much new, performed by three of the best. Don't miss it.
The concert is at Satalla at 5pm this afternoon.
They fled the darkest corners of Eastern Europe. Their story was written thousands of times over by people who risked everything to live a dream. Only a few would welcome them. THE IMMIGRANT, a new off-Broadway musical produced by Hello Entertainment, celebrates one such story in the most unlikely of places - Hamilton, Texas. This remarkable quirk in history is the beginning of the true story of Haskell Harelik who rose from street peddler to become the owner of a prominent department store. The New York Times calls it "A deeply satisfying new musical, with much on its mind about history, humanity, man and God and the American Dream, [it] touches the heart and glows with humor."
THE IMMIGRANT begins performances at the new DODGER STAGES on 340 West 50th Street between 8th and 9th Avenue on November 4th.
For more information visit
3rd Int'l Conf. on Judeo-Spanish Studies will be held in Thessaloniki October 17 & 18, 2004. The theme of the conference is "The Social and Cultural Life in Salonika through Judeo-Spanish Texts".
A PDF of the program is available at www.jct.gr/programma.pdf
The event is sponsored and organized by the Jewish community of Thessaloniki.
Now let's see events like this all over the US.
Concerts for Change presents
A benefit for the Democratic Party's efforts in Swing States
A high energy evening featuring New York's premiere Jewish performers:
Tuesday, October 12th at 7:30pm
at
The Knitting Factory
Main Space
72 Leonard Street
Directions: (212) 219-3006
Tickets: $18 online/$25 at the door
All proceeds will go to the DNC
To purchase tickets online, go to:
www.concertsforchange.org
Long-time klezmer Wendy Morrison currently plays with KlezCentricity in the Washington, DC area. She is also responsible for The Celtic Klezmer Concert of the Second Millenium a decade ago that pulled in her love of Celtic music. Her most recent project, "Shalshelet" is Jewish liturgical music, and is now to be featured at the conference of the same (albeit unreleated) name. She writes:
Continue reading "Shalshelet, "Festival of New Jewish Liturgical Music", Nov 13-14" »
On the one-week delay forced by the Internet outage last week (imagine! forced to give up e-mail for a week and enjoy only the Yiddish culture in front of us!), you can read about the week through "last night"—Thursday night at the KlezKanada weblog
If you can't make it to Toronto for Ashkenaz this Labor Day weekend (and even if you can) do consider attending a social justice weekend at Hopewell Junction, NY (Sylvan Lake) sponsored by Workmen's Circle.
Oh, right. This is the KlezmerShack, not the SocialJusticeShack. Trust me, there will be klezmer.
Ashkenaz: A Festival of new Yiddish Culture 2004 features outstanding international artists from widely disparate parts of the world, including Ethiopia's Yossi Vassa, France's Les Yeux Noirs, South America's Klezmer en Buenos Aires and Holland's Ot Azoj. Over the past decade, Toronto's Ashkenaz festival has become the greatest and most widely attended North American event celebrating the contemporary Yiddish cultural revival. Highlighting the theme of migration, Ashkenaz 2004 features a startling mixture of performances showcasing rich traditions moving in joyful new directions.
A festival schedule is now available online at www.ashkenazfestival.org
KlezKanada is one of my favorite Klezmer gatherings. This one takes place at a Jewish summer camp north of Montreal. It always includes amazing teachers in everything ranging from dance to singing to theatre to making music. There are great kids activities, as well.
The one thing lacking at KlezKanada, KlezKamp, KlezCalifornia, and other such events has been someone to speak to Hebrew letterforms: what Hebrew typography looks like, or how to put together a songsheet or CD liner notes that work well for readers (or singers). Being the only Hebrew Typesetter, Extraordinaire of my acquaintance, and desiring to spend time with some of my best friends, I have convinced the organization to let me teach on these subjects this year. I hope someone is able to tear himeself or herself away from playing music to do so. My wife, Judith Pinnolis, of the Jewish Music WebCenter will also be there, speaking about Women in Jewish American music, as well as giving her popular workshops on finding music resources on the web. We'll also be working on an as-yet-unspecified weblog project to put pictures, writing, and possibly sounds from the week up on the web as it happens. We hope that you will join us. We'd love to meet you.
I will be adding Hebrew Typography resources to my new weblog on the subject as I develop my lecture. For more information on that subject, do visit my Hebrew Typography weblog. Among the resources that I hope to have online soon are a critique of a synagogue prayerbook and my lecture from Type90 at Oxford, UK.
For further information about KlezKanada — and do register soon to get a place — see the Aug 23 listing, or visit the KlezKanada website, www.klezkanada.com
Come Celebrate the Rebirth of Klezmer Music in the Former Soviet
Union at the Fifth Annual KlezFest, Ukraine!
August 15-20, 2004
Kiev, Ukraine
Celebrating Yiddish Culture & Klezmer Music. A week-long celebration of Klezmer Music, Yiddish Language, Dance, Theatre and Folk Arts. Presented in Association with the Jewish Music Festival.
Place: San Francisco, California at the Jewish Community
High School of the Bay, 1835 Ellis St.
Dates: June 20 - 25, 2004
Times: 9:00 am -6:00 pm & Evening Programs
For more information: visit www.klezCalifornia.org, e-mail info@klezcalifornia.org, call (415) 789-7679. Mailing Address: P.O. Box 36 Lagunitas, CA 94938.
The Center for Jewish Music of the Jewish Community Center of St.
Petersburg is proud to announce "KlezFest St. Petersburg 2004,"
an international seminar on the traditional music of Eastern
European Jewry, to be held June 12-16, 2004 in St. Petersburg,
Russia.
For more information, please contact the Jewish Community Center of
St. Petersburg via fax at (+7-812) 314-5117, or e-mail frenk@lea.spb.su.
Adrienne Cooper is possibly my favorite singer. Certainly, my favorite Yiddish singer. She is also an incredible performer - the singing is just an excuse. To see this show, therefore, in a small setting like Satalla, is a real metzia - a find.
Sunday, January 18, 2004
Adrienne Cooper, Dan Rosengard & Frank London
Ghetto Tango
8 pm
Admission $15
:::::: S A T A L L A ::::::
37 West 26th St. NYC
:::: 212.576.1155 :::::
Satalla.com :::: home
Continue reading "Adrienne Cooper in Ghetto Tango, NYC, Jan 18" »
To those of you in the New York City area interested in the Jews of Ireland:
The film "Shalom Ireland", to which we (Ceilizemer) did the musical soundtrack (available from www.cdbaby.com), will be playing at this year's New York Jewish Film Festival. The screening schedule is as follows.
New York Jewish Film Festival screenings of "Shalom Ireland":
Jan. 28, 2004 6:00pm
Jan. 29, 2004 1:00pm and 6:00pm
The Lincoln Center�s Walter Reade Theatre
www.jewishmuseum.org/home/page.php?id=filmfest
Jan. 31, 2004, 5:00pm
Feb. 1, 2004, 3:00 pm (this screening will be followed by a discussion with
Rabbi David Rosen)
Feb. 2, 2004, 5:00 pm
Feb. 4, 2004, 5:00 pm
The Jacob Burns Theatre, Pleasantville, NY
www.burnsfilmcenter.org
A lovely bit of a film, 'tis...
-Andy Rubin
Ceilizemer and The Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band
This is an exciting event. If you are in New York City, this is well-worth attending - the diversity of music and events and concert and lectures is wonderful. If you can't make it, I'll try to at least write about the conference. If you are there, do feel free to comment here (unless I actually set up that Milken Conference Weblog at this last moment).
Visit the conference website at: www.milkenarchive.org/events/events.taf
Announcing the Festival of New Jewish Liturgical Music
November 13-14, 2004
Deadline for submissions: March 30, 2004
For an application and more information, e-mail
Shalshelet@NewJewishMusic.com or visit
www.Shalshelet.org.
Continue reading "Festival of New Jewish Liturgical Music, Nov 13-14" »
Sunday, November 2, 10am- 5pm, THE BIGGEST HORA IN HISTORY. Be a
part of history- dance in the largest Hora ever, (7,000 people
expected) and be recorded in the Guinness Book of Worlds Records as
the largest circle dance in history. The event features live music
all day as well as Israeli vendors. @ The Blue Claws Baseball Stadium
(First Energy Park)in Lakewood, NJ. Admission: Adults $3, Children
and Seniors $2. For tickets or to register to dance contact the
Jewish Federation of Ocean County: 732-363-0530 or
www.bighora.com
The 19th Annual Yiddish Folk Arts Program "KlezKamp" will be held from
December 23-29, 2003 at the Swan Lake Hotel in the heart of New York's Catskill
region. For information about the program, registration, and work/study options
please go to our website www.klezkamp.org.
To find out more about KlezKamp, see Ari Davidow's article about KlezKamp '96 or Ben Gerhon's article about KlezKamp '99
ANNOUNCING: The only West Coast and the world's only winter Yiddish intensive: the 4th annual "Art of Yiddish: Entering the Heart of a Culture Through Its Beat", Los Angeles, December 14 20, 2003. Learn Yiddish with the best Yiddish teachers in North America: Pesakh Fiszman, Anna Gonshor, Miriam Hoffman, Sheyndl Liberman, and Sheva Zucker. Develop a deeper understanding of the culture that created our beloved Klezmer music and humor, with world-renown klezmorim Jeff Warschauer and Deborah Strauss teaching song and dance workshops (bring along your own instruments too); ethnomusicologist Robert Cohen revealing the back stories to Yiddish music; and writer/actor Yakov Basner illuminating the comic side of Yiddish literature from Chelm to Moshe Nadir. Theodore Bikel joins us for our closing concert and farbrengen.
It's the perfect time to explore your roots through the vitality, soul, and wit of Yiddish culture. Produced in collaboration with the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies and the University of Judaism Department of Continuing Education. For more information and to request or download the brochure, please visit www.yiddishinstitute.org or e-mail Miriam@yiddishinstitute.org.
Helsinki Klezmer Festival, the festival of traditional instrumental music of the Yiddish-speaking people is organized for the third time already in Finland. Savoy Theatre as its venue, the event aims to make klezmer music better known in general and to give people a possibility to get to know one of the Europe's most interesting cultural traditions. Klezmer music has its roots in the medieval Europe, where the Jewish people of the Eastern Europe traveled from town to town in order to play in weddings and other events. By the end of the 18th century klezmer music had become a well-developed music style, gathering influences from the Jewish culture and from outside of it.
Nowadays klezmer music is played almost all around the world, but mostly in the United States and in Europe. Klezmer music is constantly evolving and mixing with other music styles such as jazz and pop music. In order for the style to survive it is still important that there are also bands trying to find out the origins of klezmer music and ways to maintain it as authentic as possible. The authenticity of the music will not bring back the culturally rich community that once lived in the Eastern Europe but will give the listeners a possibility to get a bit closer look at the life of the society that lived at that time.
More information at: www.popzoo.fi/klezmer
Spend Labor Day Weekend, Aug 29 - Sep 1, with the New Folksbiene Yiddish Theater as they prepare for their 89th season. Enjoy lectures, demonstrations, panel discussions and concerts, and participate in activities ranging from choral singing to an acting workshop.
For more information, see the Klezmer Calendar
For reservations, call 800-551-1553 or 845-221-2771 or www.circle.org/Circle/circle%20v.2/wcsr.htm
Perhaps you've been wondering what's up in Chicago and why KFAR Jewish Arts Center has been so quiet following last season. Well, first there was a WAR, then we had Sfirah (a traditional period of no music) and then came our summer break and then there's the economy... But have we been sitting on our tuchas? Heck, no! We've been preparing a tasty selection for your enjoyment for the coming year. Check it out:
"Divan" stars at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
Check out a clip of DIVAN on: www.sfjff.org/sfjff23/video/
Tickets for the screenings available on: www.sfjff.org
To reclaim an ancestral couch upon which esteemed rabbis slept, Pearl Gluck travels from her Hasidic community in Brooklyn to her roots in Hungary. Along the way, a colorful cast of characters gets involved - the couch exporter, her ex-communist cousin in Budapest, a pair of matchmakers, and a renegade group of formerly ultra-Orthodox Jews. Divan is a visual parable that offers the possibility of personal reinvention and cultural re-upholstery.
Soundtrack by Frank London
We just got a note from Hankus Netsky that "this year's New England Conservatory summer klezmer workshop (scheduled for 7/21-7/25) has been cancelled."
The Cracow Festival for Jewish Culture starts today, and will end with the legendaray Open Air at Szeroka Street next Saturday (July 6)!!
www.jewishfestival.pl
(or, english: www.jewishfestival.pl/index_en.php)
The band is interviewed by NPR's Maria Hinojosa in the last segment on this week's Latino USA show. Nice introduction to the band, and some nice clips. These guys are my favorite Jewish hip hop band, obviously.
The amazing Margot Leverett is at the Tonic this Sunday. This is a short notice show to fill in. It would be a major bummer for the audience to be limited to the two folks who happened to wander by due to late publicity. Here's the scoop:
Margot Leverett and Ruslan Agababayev present a very special program of klezmer and jazz improvisation. Ruslan is a young prodigy with a startlingly original take on klezmer and jazz. This will be an unforgettable afternoon!
Tonic is at 107 Norfolk St in Manhattan (F train to Delancey), or take Williamsburg bridge to Delancey and turn right on Norfolk. Shows are at 1:30 and 3pm, $10 for one show, $15 for both. Brunch available and optional. (212) 358-7501
See you there!
And don't forget Seth Rogovoy's recent interview with her at www.rogovoy.com/447.shtml
Margot Leverett is this amazing clarinet player, one of the founding members of the Klezmatics, an amazing traditional clarinetist (see her CD of Beckerman's tunes, "Art of the Klezmer Clarinet"). Tonight (Sat, Mat 31) she'll be appearing in Great Barrington, MA at Club Helsinki. In honor of the occasion, Seth Rogovoy has done this dynamite interview for the Berkshire Eagle. Enjoy!
This has been happening each summer for the past few years. Now it has an official name. It is an amazing experience:
The Hankus Netsky Summer Klezmer Institute
Monday-Thursday, July 21-24, 10:00 a.m.-9:00 p.m.
Friday, July 25, 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
Hankus Netsky, director
The Hankus Netsky Summer Klezmer Institute will provide students with a comprehensive hands-on introduction to the world of Eastern European Jewish Music. Workshops will include classes in Klezmer history and modal theory, and ensembles. Related topics include Hassidic song, Cantorial music, and Yiddish folk, theater, and art songs. We will also explore Yiddish and Klezmer ethnography, in interview sessions with local eastern-European performers and learn directly from world-renowned guest lecturers.
Registration: www.newenglandconservatory.edu/summer, or call the Summer School Director at (617) 585-1126 for further information.
Continue reading "Hankus Netsky Summer Klezmer Institute, Jul 21-25 2003" »
It's a first, I think - Jewish hip hop on national television! The band reports:
"This weekend the syndicated television program Urban Latino TV will air a special segment on Hip Hop Hoodios. Look for Latino-Jewish hiphop to invade the sanctity of your living room on ABC, CBS, or FOX in your city (schedule below)....and to our fans in Los Angeles and San Francisco, we apologize for the unusually early broadcast time - set your VCR's (or drink a case of Red Bull) so you don't miss the show."
Chicago Sunday (late Saturday night) 12:30AM - CBS
ch. 2
Los Angeles Sunday - 5:30AM ABC ch. 7
Miami Monday - 2:00AM (late Sunday night) - CBS ch.
4 -
New York Saturday - 12:00Midnight CBS ch. 2
San Diego Monday (late Sunday night) 12:30AM FOX
ch. 6
San Francisco Sunday 6:30AM ABC ch. 7
R. L. Reid writes to the Jewish-Music mailing list, this morning:
Nachum Segal's radio program on AM 620 in New York City will be carrying a live feed from Meron tonight at 7 PM Eastern time - therefore the sounds of Lag BOmer in Meron at 2 AM Israel time.
There does seem to be a live web link for listening but I've never tried it - www.nachumradio.com I would suspect it might not be handle to handle a large number of connections.
It's worth trying to get the broadcast, though. This is one of the purest streams of traditional klezmer still extant - the Meron tradition represents the tradition of Jewish wedding music, as brought from Eastern Europe by Hasidim in the 18th century (is my memory for history correct on this? I seem to remember this as the big hasidic emigration to Tzfat, rebuilding what had once been a thriving center a few centuries earlier, prior to an earthquake that marked the end of the Tzfat of Luria and his peers - but I am not at home, and not near a library to quickly reference this), and as it has evolved there.
Continue reading "Mikveh/Erica Jong for Mother's Day, NYC" »
Rebetika (aka "rembetika") is the greek answer to fado ;-). It's close enough to klezmer that I want to spread the word.
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You are invited to attend our Third International Weekend Conference
"RESEARCHING REBETIKA:
Present Projects and Future Prospects"
to be held at the Melina Mercouri Hall on the Island of Hydra, near Athens,
on
Thursday 16 October - Sunday 19 October 2003
See our website at: www.geocities.com/HydraGathering
Continue reading "Conference on Rebetika, Oct 16 - 19, 2003" »
The Center for Jewish Music of the Jewish Community Center of St. Petersburg is proud to announce "KlezFest in St. Petersburg 2003," an international seminar on the traditional music of Eastern European Jewry, to be held July 12-16, 2003 in St. Petersburg, Russia.
For more information, please contact the Jewish Community Center of St. Petersburg via fax at (+7-812) 314-5117, or e-mail frenk@lea.spb.su.
Continue reading "Klezfest St. Petersberg, July 12-16, 2003" »
One of the great klezmer camps, and this summer's only east coast klezmer camp (compared to Klezcalifornia, Jun 22-27), is also a delight:
KlezKanada
Takes place at a Jewish summer camp in the Laurentian Hills, er "Mountains" to folks on the east coast. The full summer schedule and all details are now online:
Celebrating Yiddish Culture & Klezmer Music is a 5 day immersion program in klezmer music, yiddish language, and folk arts.It is being presented in Association with the Jewish Music Festival.
Cost ranges from $160: children to $390: adults. $50 discount for early adult registration before May 1st. Register ASAP as spaces are limited.
For further information: www.klezcalifornia.org, julieegger@attbi.com or 415-789-7679.
Continue reading "KlezCalifornia--early bird reg. discount ends May 1" »
There are a very few new Jewish music bands: Brave Old World, say, or the Klezmatics, who consistently push the envelope and take my breath away like the Flying Bulgars. I have arranged work schedules so that I can stop off in Toronto to see them perform. It is therefore with great excitement that I present the following:
The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band
presents a CD Release Celebration Concert for their new recording,
Sweet Return
Saturday, May 10, 8:30pm; Sunday, May 11, 2pm
Hugh's Room, 2261 Dundas St W, Toronto
Tickets: Sat. $15/Sun. $12 BOX OFFICE: 416-531-6604
Continue reading "New Flying Bulgars; Album Release May 10,11" »
New Haven, Conn. Yale University will host a conference on April 12 and 13, celebrating the acquisition of a major collection of Jewish music by the University.
The Wallersteiner Collection of Jewish Music includes about 700 pieces of sheet music of popular, liturgical and theater songs and hymns from Germany, the United States, Israel and elsewhere from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The collection was acquired by the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library at Yale.
For further information check the conference web site at www.library.yale.edu/judaica/music/index.html or contact Nanette Stahl, conference director, at nanette.stahl@yale.edu or phone number (203)432-7207.
Continue reading "Jewish Music Conference at Yale, Apr 12-13" »
ELDRIDGE STREET PROJECT
presents a site-specific multimedia installation
TRANCE
Pearl Gluck and Basya Schechter
April 30 - July 30 2003
OPENING NIGHT WED, APRIL 30, 6PM
live performance and reception
12 Eldridge Street, (between Canal and Division)
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION 212.978.0803
Continue reading "TRANCE: An Art Installation (Opens April 30)" »
Here are two upcoming klezmer concerts that will be broadcast this weekend, one in Germany, one in Boston, MA:
The German broadcast, of the Joel Rubin Klezmer Music Ensemble, will be on Germany Public Radio SWR2 (cable frequency 107,85) at 8:05pm, Saturday, Apr 5
In Boston, Michael Winograd and his band will perform ~9:30a.m., Apr 6, WERS, 88.9 FM.
THEODOR VASILESCUS FOLKLORE AND DANCE TOUR OF ROMANIA JUNE 20 JUNE 30, 2003
The tour will include 11 days of visits to local villages and folk dancers, ethnographic museums, dance performances, castles, folk restaurants, dance instruction and lots of sightseeing, arranged with the assistance of Marin Barbu.
Continue reading "Folklore and Dance tour of Romania, Jun 20 - 30, 2003" »
A most fascinating concert is coming up on Mar 26th at UConn/Storrs. Yiddish folk-rocker Wolf Krakowski headlines, backed with the Lonesome Brothers. Also on the bill is Mawwal, described as a "Middle Eastern roots music" with violin wizard Alicia Svigals making a guest appearance.
The idea of bringing Yiddish music together with Middle Eastern music suggests not only a fascinating fusion (especially given Krakowski's country-rockish leanings), but makes it's own rather nice statement.
More information is available on Krakowski's Kamea Media site, www.kamea.com, and from an online PDF
Andreas Rohde, of the wonderful German Klezmer/folk band, Aufwind, writes:
Now we have finished the program and the website of the 12th "Days of the Jewish Culture in Chemnitz/Germany". It is a various program not only with klezmer; we have reading, a radio feature, danceworkshop, theatre.... The website is only in German but it is translatable with altavista and other web-translation-services.
www.tdjk.de (Website-Tage der jüdischen Kultur Chemnitz)
As usual, we invite attendees to post comments here, during and after the event.
Set in the foothills of the Sandia mountains on the lush 300+ acre campus of Albuquerque Academy, this weeklong workshop features internationally acclaimed tsimbalist and accordianist Josh Horowitz, from the group Budowitz, and renowned Holocaust educator and fiddler Cookie Segelstein. Following mornings of music, you can hike on our private wilderness tract or on the many acres of public land nearby. Or explore the cultural resources of the Albuquerque/Santa Fe area.
For more information contact Danny Packer at (505) 828-3361, or packer@aa.edu. To register, contact the Albuquerque Academy Summer session at (505) 858-8811.
Continue reading "Albuquerque Academy Klezmer Camp, Jun 23-27" »
"Kabbalah Music" CD Release Concert & Art Exhibit
Sisters Explore Jewish Mysticism through Music and Painting
Laura Wetzler in "Kabbalah Music: Songs of the Jewish Mystics" Sunday, March 9, 3pm at The Merkin Concert Hall, 129 W.67th St., NYC. Tickets $25. Call Box Office:(212) 501-3330, Special Guests: Alicia Svigals, violin (of the Klezmatics,) Amir Chehade & Robin Burdulis, mideast percussion; Scott Wilson, kanun; Maurice Chedid, oud. Set Design and Art Exhibit by Angela Milner.
In conjunction, "Kabbalah Music: Encaustic Paintings by Angela Milner" The Merkin Concert Hall Gallery, 129 W.67th St. NYC. March 9-April 1. Post "Kabbalah Music" concert reception and art opening in gallery. Gallery hours by appointment thereafter: (212) 307-1385.
Continue reading ""Kabbalah Music" CD Concert Art Exhibit, premiers Mar 9" »
Alan Bern, of Brave Old World, writes:
I'd like to announce the Weimar Klezmer Weeks Workshops 2003, expanded to two whole weeks, from July 27 to August 10, in Weimar, Germany. There will be a special 3-day workshop concentrating on Yiddish song repertoire and style, conducted by Michael Alpert, Adrienne Cooper, Alan Bern and Marilyn Lerner, and special 3-day Yiddish danceworkshop, conducted by Zev Feldman, Michael Alpert, Brave Old World + Christian Dawid and Sanne Mricke, and finally, a week-long workshop for advanced klezmer musicians, instrumentalists only, conducted by Brave Old World, Frank London and Sophie Solomon (Oi Va Voi). Weimar is a wonderful city and the facilities for the workshop are incredible. Please check out the website for further information about this unique event. Web: www.klezmer-wochen-weimar.de
Sylvia Schildt writes the Jewish-Music list with an update about this upcoming conference: "For ongoing monthly updates and revelations, reg. forms and teacher tribute forms, you can visit fishl kutner's site www.derbay.org, or write: creativa@charm.net.
Continue reading "Yiddish Conference, Baltimore, MD, Sep 4-7" »
Mikveh is an all-woman Jewish supergroup comprising folks who have been involved with the klezmer revival, Yiddish folk and theatre music, new Jewish music, balkan music, and much that has been amazing about Jewish music for the last few decades (one bandmember, Susan Watts Hoffman, is a 4th generation klezmer).
This wouldn't matter so much except that in concert they bring out an intensity and virtuosity in each other that dwarfs their former achievements. This is the group's first appearance in Boston, and it's a must-see if you are in the area:
Here we go: KlezFest London and Ot Azoy! are now open: You can find a
registration form on Website www.jmi.org.uk.
3rd JMI International Summer School in Klezmer music and Yiddish culture
SOAS, University of London, Russell Square, London WC1
Two weeks 29 June - 10 July 2003
Continue reading "KlezFest London returns 29 Jun - 10 Jul" »
It is time to take the wraps off of one of the best-kept secrets in Toronto's Jewish community. Jewish music is Alive and Well in Toronto, Canada. Beginning on Sunday January 12th, 2003, Israel's Judaica, at 897 Eglinton Avenue West, will host, together with Mel Korn and Syncopated Services, a series of intimate presentations of the beautiful and diverse music flourishing in our midst.
Jewish Klezmer music comes to life in the town of Gelsenkirchen between February and June 2003. The project named "Klezmerwelten" highlights not only Klezmer music itself, but also provides a broader view over the function of music in society. The department of culture of the town of Gelsenkirchen and various supporters of the project offer a programme that includes an exhibition, concerts, a ballet performance and dance-workshop, further training course, film showings, a symposium and lectures. The department of culture has worked in close cooperation with scholars from the fields of music and history to design this project.
KlezCalifornia: Yiddish Folk Arts Camp. To be held June 22-26, 2003 at the Jewish Community High School in San Francisco. Welcome to a celebration of klezmer music, dance, Yiddish, Jewish culture, and visual arts in an atmosphere of joyh and welcoming: four class periods, a full children's program and evening programs including concerts by renowned musicians. Teachers will include: Stu Brotman, Michael Alpert, Michael Wex, Joshua Horowitz and many others.
In Europe Jewish weddings took place over several days and featured many musical forms, from the meditative melodies of the first days and the morning of the wedding, to the carnivalesque dances of the wedding feast. Traditionally the music was performed by the klezmorim under the supervision of the badkhn, a combination clown and master of ceremonies. Khevrisa is the only ensemble in America to perform these klezmer wedding melodies, taken from manuscripts and from the last European masters of the tradition, using the original instrumentation.
Continue reading "Khevrisa performs from European Wedding Repertoire, NYC, Oct 6" »
The Center for Jewish Music of the Jewish Community Center of St. Petersburg is proud to announce "KlezFest in St. Petersburg 2002," an international seminar on the traditional music of Eastern European Jewry, to be held June 20-23, 2002 in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Continue reading "Klezfest in St. Petersburg, Russian, Jul 20 - 23, 2002" »
The Ashkenaz festival dates are August 31st to Sept 02nd at Harbourfront Centre, Toronto. Some of the featured performers are: Di Naye Kapelye Sat 10:00pm, Klezmer Buenos Aires Sat 9:30pm and Monday @ 5:00pm; The Cracow Klezmer Band Monday @ 2:00pm; PLUS: Frank London's Brass Band, Khevrisa, Flying Bulgars, Hebrew Artist Zoe B. Zak, Judith Cohen. There is a ton more. For further info: www.ashkenazfestival.com.
Hosted by Michael Alpert, in the first set, he will perform and talk about his personal history and connection to Eastern European klezmer music. He will also answer questions from the audience. In the second half, he will host a klezmer jam. All instruments (including voice) at all levels are welcome. For further info: please contact The Workmen's Circle at 617-566-6281 or email at: wcircle@gis.net
8:30 p.m. on Monday, April 1 at the Buttonwood Tree, 605 Main Street in Middletown, CT, (860) 347-4957. The new CD features Chevan and Byrd with the Afro-Semitic Experience playing an array of original pieces, sacred music, klezmer, and sacred music by jazz composers. The official release date for this recording is April 5, but we will have albums available at this event. Please join us if you are anywhere in the Connecticut area. Matzo will be served and a freylekhe down home time will be had by all!!
Class taught by Lev Liberman (The Klezmorim): Klezmer -- Eastern European Yiddish instrumental music -- emigrated to America circa 1910, went underground in the Great Depression, and re-emerged in the 1970s. We will explore klezmer music's timeless appeal through rare recordings and live musical demonstrations -- tracking the genre's evolution from Ukrainian village bands to the postmodern avant-garde. Reading and discussion topics will include: mad genius clarinetist Naftule Brandwein; influences of Roma (Gypsies); the dark ages of Catskill kitsch; dynamics of the klezmer revival; today's trailblazing stylists in neo-klezmer fusion and Euro-roots retro.
>Featuring internationally acclaimed tsimbalist and accordianist Josh
Horowitz, from the group Budowitz, and renowned Holocaust educator and
fiddler Cookie Segelstein, this week long class is open to anyone who can
play simple tunes on their instrument. You do not have to read music or be
familiar with Klezmer style. We encourage both solo players and existing
ensembles to participate. Class will run daily from 9 AM until noon, with
both instruction and practice time. $200.
Continue reading "Albuquerque Academy Klezmer Camp July 8-12, 200" »