UVA Klezmer Ensemble, Charlottesville, VA, Mar 22
UVA Klezmer Ensemble
Thursday, March 22, 8pm
Old Cabell Hall
Free
(434) 924-3984
The recently formed UVA Klezmer Ensemble will be giving its premiere performance under the direction of our new Director of Music Performance, Joel Rubin. The ensemble, made up of UVA students, faculty and other members of the Charlottesville community, is dedicated to exploring klezmer and other Jewish
musical traditions.
The performance will feature two guest artists, violinist David Chernyavsky and pianist James Loeffler. Chernyavsky is known to the UVA community for his brilliant performances and master classes as part of the recent Joel Rubin Ensemble residency. Currently Assistant Concertmaster of Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center, Chernyavsky is a former member of the renowned St. Petersburg String Quartet.
Loeffler has been the Berkowitz Assistant Professor of Jewish History at the University of Virginia since fall 2006. He has performed as pianist in numerous klezmer bands. He is also a co-founder and current academic vice-chair of the Jewish Music Forum, a New York-based academic organization that seeks to promote interdisciplinary dialogue and scholarly exchange in the field of Jewish musical studies, and serves as Research Director of Pro Musica Hebraica, a new Washington-area organization working to develop an ongoing Jewish music concert series at the Kennedy Center.
The performance will focus on the klezmer traditions of New York and Philadelphia between the two world wars, as well as late 19th century Russia. Klezmer, originally the ritual and celebratory instrumental music of the Yiddish-speaking Jews of Eastern Europe, was brought to North America by immigrants around the turn of the last century. Since the 1970s, a dynamic revival of this tradition has been taking place in America and beyond. Klezmer's recent popularity has brought it far from its roots in medieval minstrelsy and Jewish ritual and into the sphere of mainstream culture.
www.virginia.edu/music/pressrelease/06-07/klezmer032207.html