JMI Klezfest, London, UK, 9-14 Aug, 2009
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.
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
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