ROSSI, MADAMAEUROPA DE’, highly accomplished professional singer in the court of the Gonzaga family in late 16th and early 17th century Mantua. The sister of the composer and musician Salamone De’ *Rossi , she was the daughter of Bonaiuto De’ Rossi and the wife of the prominent Jewish community leader David ben Elisha, whose last name was also De’ Rossi. MadamaEuropa had two sons, Bonaiuto (Azaria), who became a prominent Jewish leader and educator, and Angelo (Mordechai), who became a court lutanist in Turin and a banker. Madama Europa’s grandsons also served as skilled court musicians and bankers in Turin.
Madama Europa’s musical activities in Mantua are known through court salary records and letters from audience attendees. In one document of 1592–93 she is listed as “Europa di Rossi,” along with a group of other musicians, including Claudio Monteverdi.
Dr. Lillian Wohl, Post-Doctoral Fellow
The Lowell Milken Fund for American Jewish Music will speak on Jewish music in Buenos Aires.
Thursday, March 8, 2018 4:00 PM PST/ 7:00 PM EST UCLA Faculty Center
University of California, Los Angeles
Live-stream this event from anywhere in the world via the Jewish Music Forum Facebook Page!
Not on Facebook? Email us atinfo@jewishmusicforum.orgto request a link to watch the event.
Since 1994, “Jewish music” has emerged as an important yet ambiguous mode of cultural expression in Argentina, making audible Jewish history in Latin America and affirming a contemporary Jewish presence in the region. This lecture explores the intersection of practices of cultural renewal and the uses of memory as a Jewish musical resource in public and private spaces in Buenos Aires.… CONTINUE READING >
Samuel Torjman Thomas (sax/oud) and Alon Nechustan (piano)
January 17, 2018. 7:30pm
The Lowell Milken Fund for American Jewish Music hosts a concert and reception, free and open to the public, at the UCLA Music Library. Dr. Torjman Thomas and Nechustan traverse a wide repertoire of Jewish music, extending and exploring new settings that bring a New York City sound to the fore.
An elegant as well as nostalgic program devoted to treasures of Yiddish song and the poetry that has inspired this musical expression in all its variety of style. Presented in the intimate chamber music setting of a traditional classical Liederabend (song evening) appropriate to the immediacy of this cherished genre, the recital will feature four of its leading interpreters: Ida Rae Cahana,Elizabeth Shammash, Raphael Frieder, Simon Spiro, and a cameo appearance by Robert Paul Abelson, together with world renowned virtuoso pianist Yehudi Wyner.… CONTINUE READING >
Kaplan Commissioning Project
Saint Mary’s University Concert Band
The ninth Helen and Sam Kaplan Foundation Commission for a new Concert Band composition written by a composer of Jewish heritage is outlined below. Any questions prior to application submission should be directed to Dr. Janet Heukeshoven, Director of Bands, at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota. jheukesh@smumn.edu
Amount of Commission:
• $7,000.00 plus travel/expense allowance for a campus residency at the premier of the composition.
Description of the Composition:
• The work will be scored for standard full Concert Band instrumentation, appropriate difficulty level for advanced high school bands and small college ensembles.
• Length of composition: approximately 5-8 minutes in length.
• The composition must be based on Jewish melodic or thematic material, either folk or religious sources.… CONTINUE READING >
Annual Concert for a Bold Spiritual Community of Resistance and Love
Sunday, May 21, 2017, 4 PM
130 W 30, NYC
The Emma Lazarus powerful 1883 sonnet, “The New Colossus,” inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, has served as a beacon of welcome and hope to generations of immigrants who came to our shores seeking refuge and freedom. We can revel in the chamber music, songs, liturgical settings, choral music and works for Yiddish theater created by immigrant composers, Bela Bartok, Ernest Bloch, Kurt Weill, Sholom Secunda, Irving Berlin, Miguel del Aguila, and Regina Spektor,
performed by
Elana Arian, violin/singer, Ivan Barenboim, clarinet, Adria Benjamin, viola, Tomoko Fujita, cello, John Riddle, tenor, Beth Robin, piano, Joyce Rosenzweig, pianist/conductor, Amanda Seigel, soprano, Sebu Sirinian, violin, Lisa Tipton, violin, Sally Wilfert, singer, Cantor Steve Zeidenberg, singer, and the CBST Community Chorus.
Grand Finale 8 mei in DeLaMar theater met
Shiri MaimonTijdens de Grand Finale van het IJMF2017 concours, op 8 mei 2017, zullen de Hoofdprijs Prijs en de Publieksprijs, alsmede een aantal genre prijzen worden uitgereikt. Ook geeft de wereldberoemde Israëlische zangeres, televisiepresentator en actrice, Shiri Maimon, een eenmalig concert in de grote zaal van het DeLaMar Theater. Zij schitterde eerder bij het Eurovisie Song Festival, de MTV European Music Awards en tijdens vele tournees.
Melodia’s spring concert Awakening the Spirit will feature the U.S. Premiere of John Rutter’s new work “Visions,” a powerful work that examines the spiritual, religious, and historic importance of Jerusalem as a symbol of “a utopian ideal of heavenly peace and seraphic bliss for redeemed humanity” in four movements.
The violin soloist performing this piece is the wonderful Areta Zhulla, an award-winning young artist who works and trains with Itzhak Perlman. I’ll enclose the details of the upcoming performances of this piece below, but please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you’d like this information in a different format. Thanks so much for considering adding this event to your calendar.
PERFORMERS
Melodia Women’s Choir led by Cynthia Powell, Areta Zhulla (violin), Rita Costanzi (harp), and an all-female string quintet: Rachell Wong, Robyn Quinnett, violins; Stephanie Griffin, viola; Kate Dillingham, cello; and Kathyrn Stewart, bass.… CONTINUE READING >
‘When We Remembered Zion’: The New Budapest Orpheum Society Commemorates Yom HaShoah
Monday, April 24, 2017
Pre-concert talk at 6:30 pm by Dr. Philip V. Bohlman, Ludwig Rosenberger Distinguished Service Professor in Jewish History, University of Chicago
Concert at 7 PM
Drawing from repertories of Jewish song from the Holocaust gathered from the cabarets, camps, ghettos, theaters, and films New Budapest Orpheum Society bears witness to those murdered, those who resisted, and those who must not be forgotten. In this concert commemorating Yom HaShoah, the New Budapest Orpheum Society honors composers Hermann Leopoldi, Friedrich Hollander, Imré Kálmán,
Hans Eisler/Bertolt Brecht, and Erich Korngold, whose musical contributions trace
a path to the European Jewish past resounded once again.
Center for Jewish History | 15 West 16th Street | New York, NY 10011
This program is co-sponsored by the Leo Baeck Institute, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, and the American Jewish Historical Society.
JTS will host a performance of excerpts and discussion of two important new operas: As One (music by Laura Kaminsky, libretto by Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed), following a transgender woman’s journey to self-acceptance. The other is Steal a Pencil for Me (music by H. L. Miller Cantorial School Assistant Professor Gerald Cohen, libretto by Deborah Brevoort), the story of a real-life couple who fell in love while imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps. Following the performance, the two composers, Laura Kaminsky and Gerald Cohen, will discuss their operas’ creation. Cantor Nancy Abramson, director of H. L. Miller Cantorial School, will moderate the discussion.
You may be interested in attending a performance of a new one-act opera, Triangle Fire, with music by Leonard Lehrman and a libretto by Ellen Frankel. It’s being performed Saturday, March 25, 2017, at 8:00 pm – $10 suggested donation; no one turned away
at 8 PM
at New York University, Room 220, 32 Waverly Place (at the corner of University Place).
The opera, a Puffin Foundation commission, commemorates the fire that broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory on March 25, 1911, killing 146 garment workers, most of them young Jewish and Italian women, recently arrived from Europe. It was one of the worst industrial accidents in American history.
Here’s some information about a tuition-free course Ensemble Lucidarium
will be giving in Venice this Summer. It’s an opportunity to make music and learn about the Italian cantorial tradition and Jewish Renaissance music while living in the city itself, and
will feature lectures various aspects of Venetian culture, an in-depth
guided visit to the Ghetto and Jewish Cemetery and a traditional Italian Shabbat service. There will be a workshop on old Jewish song, and you can
even try your hand at traditional Italian percussion…
“The Music of the Merchant: Summer course in Venetian Renaissance and Italian Jewish Music”
July 24 – 30, 2017,
Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Isola San Giorgio Maggiore,
Venice, Italy. Ensemble Lucidarium Enrico Fink: Italian cantorial tradition, Jewish song, voice Avery Gosfield: instrumental ensemble, Jewish song, recorder, pipe and tabor Gloria Moretti: vocal ensemble, voice Francis Biggi: instrumental ensemble, mixed ensemble, plucked strings Massimiliano Dragoni: traditional and early percussion, hammer dulcimer
Workshops on: repertoire linked to carnival and the Commedia dell’Arte;
the reconstruction of Jewish song in the 16th century; the Italian Jewish
tradition.… CONTINUE READING >
Graduate Seminar on Topics in Jewish Music
Taught by Dr. Neil Levin, Visiting Professor-in-Residence
This eight session graduate seminar, YIVO’s first such seminar in music, will embrace an array of topics within the wider spectrum of Jewish Studies related to the music of Jewish experience or connection—secular-cultural as well as sacred-liturgical aspects—according to the interests and pursuits of the participants.
This seminar is open to graduate students within any department at all colleges, universities or conservatories. It is not restricted to those within music departments per se, but also open to those pursuing Jewish Studies in general—especially history, literature, theatre, liturgy, or other sub-fields of Jewish Studies—who may have special interest in related music in terms of context and interdisciplinary consideration.
With prior approval, undergraduate (college, university, or conservatory) students may also be permitted to participate—both those with an interest in a particular area of Jewishly-related music and those who may be pursuing related term papers or projects.… CONTINUE READING >
The Jewish Music Forum: A project of the American Society for Jewish Music
Walter Zev Feldman, Visiting Professor of Music, NYU Abu Dhabi
Discussants: James Loeffler, Associate Professor of History, University of Virginia and
Glenn Dynner, Professor of Religion, Sarah Lawrence College
Wednesday, December 14th at 7pm
at The Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street, NY
Emerging in 16th-century Prague, the klezmer became a central cultural feature of the largest transnational Jewish community of modern times. This talk and roundtable discussion celebrates the recent publication of Feldman’s book, Klezmer: Music, History and Memory (OUP, 2016), the first comprehensive study of both the musical structure and the social history of the klezmer.
Walter Zev Feldman is a leading researcher in both Ottoman Turkish and Jewish music, and a performer on the klezmer dulcimer cimbal (tsimbl).
Chanukah’s Coming. Each year we post some new Chanukah YouTubes. Here’s one with Sidor Belarsk, z”l, singing
Borekh ato zingt der tate (Borekh Ato Sings My Dad),” written by the great poet Avrom Reyzen, with music by Solomon Golub. from the website “Yiddishkayt”.
Lenka Lichtenberg & Fray appears in NYC Dec. 6, 2016
Jalopy Theater and School of Music!! 315 Columbia Street Brooklyn, New York 11231
phone 718.395.3214 www.jalopy.biz
Workshop 6:30-8:00pm ($25)
Concert at 8:30pm ($15)
Come celebrate her new album Yiddish Journey
Toronto based, Czech born Lenka Lichtenberg singer, composer, songwriter, and chazanit. She has produced numerous recordings based on the European experience, including Yiddish songs, and her CD Breathing Walls, where she visited many old synagogues in Czech Republic, and joint projects with Yair Dalal.
Lenka Lichtenberg & Fray appears in NYC Dec. 6, 2016
Jalopy Theater and School of Music!! 315 Columbia Street Brooklyn, New York 11231
phone 718.395.3214 www.jalopy.biz
Workshop 6:30-8:00pm ($25)
Concert at 8:30pm ($15)
The Jewish Music Forum: A project of the American Society for Jewish Music
Walter Zev Feldman, Visiting Professor of Music, NYU Abu Dhabi
Discussants: James Loeffler, Associate Professor of History, University of Virginia and
Glenn Dynner, Professor of Religion, Sarah Lawrence College
Wednesday, December 14th at 7pm
at The Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street, NY
Emerging in 16th-century Prague, the klezmer became a central cultural feature of the largest transnational Jewish community of modern times. This talk and roundtable discussion celebrates the recent publication of Feldman’s book, Klezmer: Music, History and Memory (OUP, 2016), the first comprehensive study of both the musical structure and the social history of the klezmer.
Walter Zev Feldman is a leading researcher in both Ottoman Turkish and Jewish music, and a performer on the klezmer dulcimer cimbal (tsimbl).
The Jewish Music Forum of The AmericanSociety for Jewish Music
“Israel in Three Anthems”
Michael A. Figueroa, Assistant Professor of Music, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Discussant: Brigid Cohen, Assistant Professor of Music, NYU
Monday, November 28th at 7pm. at the Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011. Tickets are free and all programs are open to the public. Please rsvp to: info@jewishmusicforum.org.
This talk discusses how three anthems—“Ha-Tikva,” “L’Internationale,” and “Yerushalayim shel Zahav”— have helped shaped Israeli society, analyzing these songs as performances of collectivity representing the multifaceted nature of Zionism and the shifting political landscape in Israel.
Michael A. Figueroa is an ethnomusicologist whose work resides at the intersection of music and political consciousness in Middle Eastern and African American contexts.
It is sad news to report the passing today, November 20, 2016, of Reb Ben Zion Shenker z”l. Reb Shenker was renowned as the composer of over a thousand songs in the chassidic tradition, at least 400 in the Modzitzer style. Shenker was born in Brooklyn in 1925. As a child, he participated in the synagogue choir led by cantor Joshua Samuel Weisser [Pilderwasser], then a leading cantor in country. In the late 1930s, Weisser aided his appearance on radio and helped set the stage for Shenker to study composition and music theory. While his parents were from nearby Lubin, Shenker became known for helping preserve the Modzitzer musical tradition of chassidic song after meeting the Modzitzer rebbe (Rabbi Saul Taub) in NY in 1940. He started transcribing many of the melodies sung by the rebbe and others in that community becoming essentially “musical secretary” for the dynasty. … CONTINUE READING >
This presentation addresses three anthems that have helped shape Israeli society: “Ha-Tikva,” “L’Internationale,” and “Yerushalayim shel Zahav.” In light of three ideological facets represented by these songs—liberation, solidarity, and territoriality—Dr. Figueroa will discuss what constitutes an anthem in Jewish and Israeli history, theorizing a mode of performance he calls the “declamatory style,” in which vocal gestures that blur the distinction between speech and song portend the political value of musical performance.
A lecture and musical program with Dr. Walter Zev Feldman (author, cimbal) and Deborah Strauss (violin)
This event is free and open to the public on a first-come, first-served basis, and is generously sponsored by the Dorot Jewish Division in cooperation with Yiddish New York and the Center for Traditional Music and Dance.
Emerging in 16th century Prague, the klezmer became a central cultural feature of the largest transnational Jewish community of modern times – the Ashkenazim of Eastern Europe.… CONTINUE READING >
Composer, conductor, professor, and activist Daniel Asia talks about the origins of Yiddish song in Eastern European culture, its continuation on the American scene in the music of Yiddish composer Lazar Weiner, and its influence on Asia’s own award-winning music.
Ensemble Me La Amargates Tu is excited and proud to announce their New CD “Scalerica de oro” which was launched on the 4th of September 2016, at the International Jewish Day, in Geneva. After working hard for two whole years, recording, editing, searching and exploring, Ensemble Me La Amargates Tu finally has the result! The new CD is available for sale at web-site: www.mlat.org <http://www.mlat.org> .* There are some sample tracks that are from the CD so that you can enjoy the music and decide if you like it enough in order to order one!
Event title: The Legacy of Robert Moevs; includes Elijah’s Chariot for string quartet and electronics from shofar sounds by Judith Shatin
Event date: Nov 13, 2016
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: Address: Shindell Choral Hall, 79 George St. City/Town: New Brunswick, NJ Country: US – United States State: NJ New Jersey Zip Code: 08901
This concert features Composition Teachers and Students at Rutgers University. Distinguished composer Robert Moevs, in whose honor the concert was conceived, was the first composition teacher of Judith Shatin, now William R. Kenan Professor of Music at the University of Virginia. In turn, her PhD advisee, Steven Kemper, is now Assistant Professor of Music at Rutgers University. This concert features music for string quartet, in Shatin’s case with electronics fashioned from recordings of Shofar calls, and shows the circle continuing.… CONTINUE READING >
Amsterdam is hosting the 20th International Jewish Music Festival (IJMF) from the 4th until 8th of May 2017. IJMF will welcome over 100 musicians from all around the world playing everything from World music to Rap, from Classical to Klezmer.
The competition is for both ensembles and individual musicians, whose music contain Jewish elements.
Besides music, there will be lots of activities for young and old.
On May 8th, the big final will be held in the Wim Sonneveld hall in DeLaMar Theater. Here, winners will be pronounced and prizes will be handed out.
Performing the Jewish Archive is a three year Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project working to explore hidden archives, uncover and perform lost works, and create a legacy for the future. http://ptja.leeds.ac.uk/
Sunday, September 18 2016 ,7:30pm, Spanish Synagogue, Prague
Thursday, September 1, 2016
Great Sage (vegan restaurant!)
5809 Clarksville Square Drive, Clarksville, MD 21029
443-535-9400 8 to 10 pm
No cover, but 1/2 price bottles of wine while we perform!
Seth Kibel, plus Sean Lane on piano, Bob Abbott on bass, and a special appearance from guest vocalist Julie Kurzava. Maybe a few other guest appearances, as well!
Washington, D.C. At the Hungarian Ambassador’s Residence in Washington, D.C., Klezmer musician Frank London was awarded the Hungarian Medal, the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary, Knights Cross (in Hungarian: Magyar Köztársasági Érdemrend) for his contributions to traditional and ongoing culture.
The Azrieli Music Project (AMP), a Canadian philanthropic organization, announced that composer Wlad Marhulets is the winner of the inaugural Azrieli Prize in Jewish Music for his Klezmer Clarinet Concerto. Marhulets, who submitted a completed orchestral work on a Jewish theme or subject – along with applicants from around the world – has been granted the second of two $50,000 prizes, which were offered for the first time by the Azrieli Foundation. In September 2015, the Azrieli Music Project announced that Brian Current was the winner of the inaugural Azrieli Commissioning Competition for Canadian composers. Marhulets’s 2009 concerto and Current’s newly created work, The Seven Heavenly Halls, will both be performed at the Azrieli Music Project Inaugural Concert by Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and Maestro Kent Nagano on Wednesday, October 19, 2016 at Maison symphonique de Montréal.… CONTINUE READING >
“We’re delighted to offer this intensive music training to anyone with a love of Jewish liturgical music, who wants to hone their skills and add new ones to their repertoire,” said Cantor Brian Mayer, dean of the School of Jewish Music.
Classes will be taught by School of Jewish Music faculty, as well as guest instructors who are specialists in their fields. Among the class offerings are:
Teaching and Leading Songs in Contemporary Synagogue Worship, with Cantor Jeff Klepper
Building Spiritual Communities, with Shir Yaakov Feit , singer, composer and specialist in Renewal-style repertoire
Niggun and Klezmer, with renowned Klezmer musician Rabbi Sruli Dresdner
Teaching Music, with singer/educator Ellen Allard
Sacred Drumming, with teacher/percussionist Mitch Gordon
Shabbat and Weekday Nusach, with Cantors Brian Mayer and Becky Wexler Khitrik CAN ‘14
Accompanied Repertoire for Shabbat, with guest instructors including Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer HCRS ’14, Rav-Hazzan Neil Blumofe, Cantor Marcie Jonas CAN ’10, and Rabbi Ebn Leader
In addition to offering courses, the Prayer Leader Summer Institute will also offer AnEvening of Klezmer Music with Sruli & Lisa on Tuesday June 28 at 7:30pm.… CONTINUE READING >
The Guild of Temple Musicians is an educational and networking organization for synagogue musicians, affiliated with the American Conference of Cantors. It publishes a newsletter and offers workshops for members, as well as an annual convention. The Guild sponsors the Young Composer’s Award for the creation of serious works of Jewish music suitable for worship and/or the concert stage. In addtion, with the American Conference of Cantors, the Guild also runs the Generation to Generation Award to encourage High School musicians to create new works of music. The president for the 2010-2011 term is Aryell Cohen. He is the contact person at the address and phone below.
The Guild of Temple Musicians
5301 Balboa Blvd.
Encino, CA 91316
818-981-5052 http://thegtm.org
In addition to materials for the study of Jewish education and general Jewish studies, the library now houses the New England division of the American Jewish Historical Society. The library is also beginning to support a new cantorial school, begun in Fall 2004. Bibliographic items include standard works such as the out-of-print classics series in synagogue music. http://hebrewcollege.edu/html/library_1.htm
THE LEO BAECK INSTITUTE and the AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR JEWISH MUSIC present
AN ERWIN SCHULHOFF RETROSPECTIVE
performed by Mimi Stern-Wolfe’s Downtown Chamber Players
Wednesday May 25 at 7:30 PM
Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street
Tickets: $15; $10 for students, seniors
Reservations: www.lbi.org/schulhoff
The Leo Baeck Institute and the American Society for Jewish Music are proud to present Mimi Stern Wolfe’s Downtown Music Productions in “An Erwin Schulhoff Retrospective,” a concert of chamber works by Schulhoff, along with an academic presentation of his life and musical legacy, May 25th, 7:00 PM, at the Center for Jewish History at 15 West 16th street. The prolific Schulhoff, a Jewish composer born in Prague, perished in a concentration camp at Wurzberg, Bavaria in 1942.
The program will include the following works of Erwin Schulhoff”:
** Hot Sonata for Saxophone and Piano (1930) performed by Marty Ehrlich, saxophone and Mimi Stern-Wolfe, piano.… CONTINUE READING >
Mauro Braunstein, a mathematician and composer, has put together a database of nusach melodies with score that he has transcribed. The database contains thousands of variations of nusach covering the gamut of Jewish liturgical texts. It is divided by liturgy (weekdays, Sabbath, holidays), life cycles, and trope. Within these sections are myriad examples of the melodies and traditions of singing for the texts. There is score set for each of these, and some links to outside sound files as well. The purpose of the site is to offer a leader or researcher musical options to sing the services. Braunstein also offers his services for transcribing recordings into sheet music of those who contact him, which many will find extremely useful. This is an excellent site as a resource for finding nusach in musical notation, although some may find some of the options given within a score somewhat confusing, most will find this very helpful.… CONTINUE READING >
Rabbi Ze’ev Kraines, originally from California and educated at Cornell University and University of South Africa, has a website with useful musical mp3 files. Rabbi Kraines, a Rav at Ohr Somayach Sandton in Johannesburg, South Africa, has put together a listing called “Kraines Family Sings” of mp3 files of singing Jewish melodies which has three major components: Around the Shabbos Table, Around the Sheva Brochas Table, and Around the Year. https://sites.google.com/a/ohrsandton.com/files/kraines-family-sings
A full complement of material for learning congregational tunes and the hazzanut of the London Sephardi tradition is available in mp3 format online. The website contains a wealth of music materials. https://sites.google.com/site/shaarhashamayimlondon/
Several libraries have digitized scores of Yiddish music, which are now linked and in the HathiTrust. Other books of interest are listed in the catalog, but not yet available full text online to the public. Small collection, but interesting. http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/mb?a=listis&c=656840029
All proceeds go to the Adrienne Cooper Fund for Dreaming in Yiddish, which supports
artists working in Yiddish. Co-sponsored by YIVO in association with Yiddish New
York, GOH Productions, The National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, and the Museum of
Jewish Heritage.
Celebrate the life and work of Adrienne Cooper, Yiddish singer, scholar, and former
Assistant Director at YIVO. Stars of the klezmer and Yiddish world, including Frank
London, Sarah Gordon, Michael Winograd, and Joshua Dolgin present an evening of
music from In Love and In Struggle: The Musical Legacy of the Jewish Labor Bund
(YIVO, 1999), an album that featured Adrienne and reflects her passion for justice
and Yiddish.… CONTINUE READING >
New MA Program: MA in Jewish Cultural Arts at George Washington University
by Sarah Imhoff
GWU new Jewish Studies program / Sarah Imhoff
Take a leaf from our book…support the arts…send us your students.
Cultural Heritage of the Diaspora. Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish: Contrast, Comparison, Contact
May 8th-9th, 2016, Wrocław
The conference aims to show the current state of research on Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish (Ladino, Judezmo) as well as their present condition and importance as part of the legacy of the Jewish Diaspora. It also creates an opportunity to exchange views and to share the experiences of scholars dealing with both languages. We invite submissions that include different research perspectives or adopt comparative approach in history, anthropology, linguistics, literature and culture studies.
Thematic scope of the conference:
1. Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish – Parallel Histories
History of Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish languages, their structure, character and areas of use in a linguistic, social and gender context.
2. Sources
Description, current state, preservation and protection of sources in both languages (archival documents, press, memorial books, ethnographic sources, oral history etc.).… CONTINUE READING >
Wednesdays & Thursdays | 2 P.M. & 7:30 P.M.*
Saturdays | 7:30 P.M.
Sundays | 2 P.M. & 6 P.M.
Fridays | December 25 & January 1| 12 P.M.
*No 7:30 P.M. Performance on December 31
NYTF opens its 101st season with Di Goldene Kale (The Golden Bride), first seen on stage in the Roaring 20s. In this operetta, Goldele, a poor girl from the shtetl, inherits a fortune from her estranged father and embarks on a mission to find both her long-lost mother and her husband-to-be.… CONTINUE READING >
Poland’s Klezmer Heritage Sunday, November 22, 2:00PM
The Center for Traditional Music and Dance An-sky Institute for Jewish Culture is pleased to present Jankiel’s Legacy: Poland’s Klezmer Music Heritage. All Polish schoolchildren know the character of Jankiel, the wise, old Jewish tsimbl (dulcimer) player featured in Pan Tadeusz, the epic masterpiece by Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz.
For hundreds of years, Jewish klezmer developed in shtetls throughout historic Polish territories as well as in cities like Warsaw, Krakow, Vilna, Lviv, and Lodz. In recent decades there has been a resurgence of interest among Poles in Jewish music, and today Poland is home to some of the world’s largest Yiddish music festivals. Join Walter Zev Feldman (NYU in Abu Dhabi), a pioneer of the klezmer revival and one of the music’s leading scholars, along with acclaimed tsimbl player and CTMD Executive Director, Pete Rushefsky, the celebrated klezmer flutist Adrianne Greenbaum (Mount Holyoke) and violin virtuoso Jake Shulman-Ment for a multi-media presentation and performance exploring Poland’s klezmer heritage.… CONTINUE READING >
JEWISH MUSIC FORUM EVENT
Jewish Music Forum 2015–16 Season Opener In conjunction with The Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation and the Leo Back Institute
“Jews, Music, and Postwar German Culture”
Book Talk and Conversation with Dr. Tina Frühauf (RILM, CUNY), Dr. William H. Weitzer (Executive Director, Leo Baeck Institute), and Dr. Mark Slobin (Winslow-Kaplan Professor of Music, Wesleyan University)
Dislocated Memories: Jews, Music, and Postwar German Culture (Oxford University Press, 2014), editors Tina Frühauf and Lily Hirsch
Monday, November 30, 6:00 p.m.
The Graduate Center, CUNY
365 Fifth Avenue, The Skylight Conference Room: 9100
The first volume of its kind, Dislocated Memories: Jews, Music, and Postwar German Culture draws together three significant areas of inquiry: Jewish music, German culture, and the legacy of the Holocaust.… CONTINUE READING >
Tuesday night, November 3, 7PM – Center for Traditional Music and Dance is pleased to copresent Fidl-21st Century Masters of the Klezmer Violin at the beautiful Museum at Eldridge Street in NYC. ?Featuring Alicia Svigals, Deborah Strauss and Jake Shulman-Ment who will tell their personal stories of how they became intimately involved in the revival of the klezmer violin tradition. Moderated by ethnomusicologist Amanda Scherbenske. Click below for more information….http://www.eldridgestreet.org/event/concert-fidl-21st-century-masters-of-the-klezmer-violin-and-jam/
Co-presented with the Center for Traditional Music and Dance
$20 adults; $14 students and seniors
12 Eldridge Street, New York, NY 10002 Museum Site: 212.219.0302
“Di Goldene Kale,” a Yiddish-language operetta with music by Joseph Rumshinsky, lyrics by Louis Gilrod and a book by Frieda Freiman was restored by Michael Ochs and will be staged in New York in December 2015. Read about it in the New York Times: http://nyti.ms/1Jqyxhe .
Theodore Bikel: In the Shoes of Sholom Aleichem
Thursday, Oct. 15, 7:30 p.m.
Berenson Hall
$10 | Purchase tickets
The School of Jewish Music of Hebrew College in Newton, MA will honor the memory and celebrate the life
of troubadour, humanist and cultural icon Theodore Bikel with a special
showing of the documentary “Theodore Bikel: In the Shoes of Sholom
Aleichem.” Bikel’s career spanned more than 150 screen roles and countless
stage and musical performances. The film combines Bikel’s charismatic
storytelling and masterful performances with a broader exploration of
Aleichem’s life and work. Hankus Netsky, composer of “Theodore Bikel’s”
original score, will introduce the film and conduct a brief Q&A. Join us in
the Ted Cutler Atrium outside Berenson Hall at 7:15 p.m. for a musical
tribute to Bikel by Netsky and Cantor Becky Wexler, Can ’14.… CONTINUE READING >
The Jewish Music WebCenter News and Announcements will be closed for observing the shloshim following the death of my mother, Eileen Pinnolis, Asnah bat Tzvi Hirsh v’Zlota Menucha, z”l.
Last June Theodore Bikel was honored by YIVO. Today they released this video, where he is accompanied by Lorin Sklamberg and Daniel Kahn.
“Di zun vet aruntergeyn”
Words by Moshe Leib Halpern
Music by Ben Yomen
English adaptation by Theodore Bikel
Di zun vet aruntergeyn untern barg
vet kumen a goldene pave tsu flien
un mit nemen vet zi unz ale ahin
ahin vu di benkshaft vet tsien
The sun will be setting soon over the hill
A peacock will come and gold majesty show
And with him we’ll fly
Leaving earth far below
To a land where all longing does go
זאָל ער האָבן אַ ליכטיקן גן־עדן
Theodore Bikel plays a Russian folk song with klezmer band Beyond the Pale. The words translated by a viewer say: Golden rings and turquoise rings were rolling Down the meadow and out of sight Gone, like you, your lovely shoulders Disappeared in the dark of the night
Theodore Bikel, in Sholom Aleichem: Laughter Through Tears, playing on the Segal Centre mainstage from July 8 – 22, 2012. Video by George Allister, courtesy of the Segal Centre.
Theodore Bikel and the Zamir Chorale singing Techezakna, a folk song arranged by Eleanor Epstein, at the 19th Annual North American Jewish Choral Festival in 2008, conducted by Matthew Lazar.
Zhenya Lopatnik, a well-known klezmer singer from Kharkov, Ukraine will be performing in NYC this Sunday, July 12 2015 at 1pm at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 15 West 16th St. This is a rare opportunity to hear one of the best Yiddish singers in the world.
Zhenya Lopatnik is a singer,composer, Yiddish songwriter, and Jewish educator. She is perhaps best known for the music she composed to “Ver vet blaybn” by Avrom Sutzkever which is sung the world over. She has participated in numerous klezmer festivals as a singer, teacher and soloist of the “Kharkov Klezmer Band”. Zhenya organizes the Annual International Festival “Kharkov Klezmer Teg”. Her songs can be heard at Klezmer events in many countries.
She will be the featured singer in the Annual All-Yiddish Program in Memory of Dr.… CONTINUE READING >
August 5 2015 at 7pm at Rutgers University in New Jersey will be the first orchestrated performance in 70 years of the Operetta “di Goldene Kale” The Golden Bride with music by Joseph Rumshinsky. This performance will showcase the reconstruction of the operetta by Michael Ochs, a scholar and librarian who worked at Harvard and found the manuscript there 35 years ago. Di Goldene Kale became a smash hit for Rumshinsky who wrote beautiful romantic melodies. Zalman Mlotek of the Folksbiene National Yiddish Theater in NYC will conduct. A company of singers from New York City’s National Yiddish Theatre – Folksbiene, accompanied by the Mason Gross Muzikers orchestra, will perform the operetta. For full details and to get tickets: http://www.masongross.rutgers.edu/content/yiddish-operetta-di-goldene-kale-golden-bride-closes-out-2015-mason-gross-summer-series
The Forward newspaper is running a liturgical song contest called “Soundtrack of our Spirit”. I’m not sure what you win, other than getting your name out there, but the information and application is online. http://forward.com/opinion/310522/soundtrack/
Jerusalem Mercredi 17 juin 2015. 20h. Rosh Hodesh Tamouz.
Projet “Shalom Lishmo” Rosh Hodesh Tamouz
Concert exceptionnel de Nehama REUBEN, concertiste virtuose et
compositeur à la Harpe Hébraïque et de Shimon REUBEN, concertiste virtuose
et compositeur au Piano Jazz, couple d’artistes de renommée mondiale.
20h. Buffet d’entrée. Présentation du projet “Shalom Lishmo” par Alexandra
Bennaim et Myriam Mettoudi. Salle Harmonia 27 rehov Hillel Jerusalem
Centre ville.Paf: 45 shReserv: 054 632 0313. Nehama et Shimon REUBEN
Un couple unique au monde, uni dans la vie comme dans la musique concertistes
virtuoses internationaux et compositeurs
Harpe Hebraique et Piano Jazz specialisés en musiques juives et jazz dans
leurs propres improvisations et arrangements Nehama & Shimon REUBEN ont
fait l’alya de Paris et vivent a Jerusalem, apres 40 ans de carrière
musicale internationale… CONTINUE READING >
For Jewish music fans, this week New York is the place to be. If you get a chance, go attend Kulturfest NY this week! There will be some wonderful shows. You can still catch Shura Lipovsky Wednesday evening June 17 and Polina and Merlin Shepherd on Thursday June 18 at Joe’s Pub… They are terrific! Check it out at http://kulturfestnyc.org/events/.
KulturfestNYC is the first-ever international festival of Jewish performing arts, celebrating the global impact of Jewish culture. Presented by National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene at MJH, now celebrating its centennial season, in collaboration with UJA-Federation of New York and Capital One Bank, the weeklong festivities will commence June 14th and run through June 21st all day and night jam-packed with incredible theatre, music, dance, film, cuisine, street performances, family programs, panels, lectures to inspire and entertain you. With over 70 partners/sponsors, more than 30 countries represented, and an eclectic plethora of event venues throughout NYC, join us for this history-making endeavor!
Klezmer on the Green Thursday, June 18 at 6-7pm in New Haven, CT
David is playing with the Nu Haven Kapelye http://nuhavenkapelye.com/ Thursday night, June 18, on the New Haven Green as a part of the
International Festival of Arts and Ideas http://artidea.org/nuhavenkapelye
David is excited about this because it’s fun to make music, especially music that
is Klezmer and Yiddish song with a big band (they’ll be about 20-30 pieces)
and been rehearsing so the group sounds great and also because most
of the performance will be his original arrangements. Bring a picnic!
The 2015 National Heritage Fellows will be honored in Washington, DC, at an awards ceremony at the Library of Congress on Thursday, October 1, 2015 and a free concert on Friday, October 2, 2015 at 8:00 p.m. at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium. Both events are free and open to the public. Concert tickets are first come, first served and will be available later this summer. The concert will also be webcast live at arts.gov. More information about these events will be available this fall. – See more at: http://arts.gov/news/2015/nea-announces-recipients-nation%E2%80%99s-highest-award-folk-and-traditional-arts
Thursday June 18, 2015
Joe’s Pub
425 Lafayette St, New York, New York 10003
Clarinetist and composer Merlin Shepherd, an innovative force in the klezmer renaissance and Polina Shepherd, a virtuosic vocalist, pianist and composer blend traditional and new Yiddish and Russian song with klezmer and southern Mediterranean music.
Witness musical spontaneity and a journey that not only crosses continents, but also takes the audience deep within themselves.
The New York Andalus Ensemble–Chamber Orchestra presents a set of music and song
from al-Andalus and North Africa. Al-Andalus is excited to be headlining the first every
Greek Jewish Festival, in front of the historic Kehilla Kedosha Janina synagogue on
the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The event takes place outdoors on Broome Street,
between Allen and Eldridge.
The New York Andalus Ensemble (large ensemble) presents an evening of music and song
from al-Andalus and North Africa. Sponsored by the Ike, Molly and Steven Elias
Foundation, NYAE is happy to be performing music in the beautiful Sephardic Temple
of Cedarhurst, and being hosted by a wonderfully open and engaging community.… CONTINUE READING >
May 31, 2015, 11am-2p
$10
City Winery,
155 Varick St, New York, NY 10013
Sam Thomas and Elie Massias, at CityWinery ( http://www.citywinery.com ) in the
Tribeca area of NYC, present “ASEFA-DUO.” In a multi-instrumentalist _tour de
force,_ Sam and Elie explore different world music traditions and hybridizations,
investing each song with the sounds of a Jewish spirit and flare. For more
information: see: http://www.citywinery.com or **call
212-967-7555
Samuel Thomas sax, clarinet, nai, oud, percussion, vocals, electronica Elie Massias guitar, sax, vocals, percussion, electronica
Center for Traditional Music and Dance announces that the Stonehill Jewish Song Collection website is live – recordings of songs collected by Ben Stonehill in 1948 from DP Camp refugees being temporarily housed at the Hotel Marseilles in Manhattan. CTMD has been working with Yiddish scholar Miriam Isaacs to implement the site, and we’ll continue to expand the online offerings over time.
www.ctmd.org/stonehill.htm
A project of the Center for Traditional Music and Dance’s An-sky Institute for Jewish Culture
“…BESIDE the GOLDEN DOOR”
