Mlotek, Czackis, Yiddish Tango, NYC, Sep 12
The stunning Argentinian mezzo-soprano Lloica Czackis, who in concerts in Europe and South American performs music from the Renaissance to the avant-garde, but who is best known as a dazzling interpreter of Yiddish tango, will perform a special concert of Yiddish tangos associated with New York's Yiddish theatre on Sunday, September 12 at 5PM at the JCC in Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Avenue (at 76th Street). Presented by The Folksbiene Yiddish Theatre, the concert, "Tangos and Sizzling Songs from the New York Yiddish Theatre" is one of Czackis's first New York appearances. Czackis performs with music director Zalmen Mlotek and with special guest Shifra Lerer, the Argentinian-born, New York-based Yiddish theatre legend.
Tickets, which are $20, are available by calling 212/213-2120. The JCC in Manhattan is fully handicap accessible.
Czackis's critically acclaimed concert "Tangele: The Pulse of Yiddish Tango," a comprehensive Yiddish tango survey, premiered in London in 2002 and earned her the 2002 Millennium Award from the Jewish Music Institute in London. It has been presented in numerous concert venues and international festivals across Europe. With arrangements and music direction by the pianist and tango innovator Gustavo Beytelmann, "Tangele: The Pulse of Yiddish Tango" spans the entire Yiddish tango repertoire -- from its origins in Argentina before the turn of the century to its appearance in Western Europe in the 1910's to its incredible apogee in the cabarets, ghettos and concentration camps of Eastern Europe, all the way to its return migration to North and South America where tangos were written for Yiddish musicals and revues in New York and Buenos Aires.
The upcoming New York concert, "Tangos and Sizzling Songs from the New York Yiddish Theatre" reunites Czackis and Mlotek, the world-recognized Yiddish music expert, conductor and composer with whom she performed in 2003 at the first International Forum for Yiddish Culture in London. A wide range of tangos performed famously in New York by such greats as Molly Picon, Maurice Schwartz, Jacob Ben Ami, Benzion Witler, Michael Michalovic and Ida Kaminska showcases the work of such composers as Jacob Jacobs, Chaim Tauber and Alexander Olshanetsky, among others. Incidentally, in the course of her remarkable career, guest artist Shifra Lerer performed on stage with the above-mentioned Schwartz, Ben Ami, Witler, Michalovic and Kaminska.
This event marks the start of the venerable Folksbiene Yiddish Theatre's historic 90th consecutive season. Folksbiene is America's sole-surviving permanent professional Yiddish theatre.