The Jewish Music Forum is offering a program being given at the Center for Jewish History
on Monday, March 2nd at 7 PM.
Celebrating the release of an important new book by Dr. Evan Rapport, Greeted with Smiles: Bukharian Jewish Music and Musicians in New York (Oxford University Press), with live music examples by some of New York’s most respected Bukharian musicians led by master singer Ezro Malakov, this promises to be a wonderfully informative and entertaining evening.
Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street
New York, NY
Please RSVP at: info@jewishmusicforum.org
Reception to follow.
Additional information about the program, Dr. Rapport and the performers is below.
I hope you will be able to join us on Monday, March 2nd. Admission is free.
Please RSVP to info@jewishmusicforum.org.
As the Soviet Union stood on the brink of collapse, thousands of Bukharian Jews left their homes from across the predominantly Muslim cities of Central Asia, to reestablish their lives in the United States, Israel and Europe. Today, about 30,000 Bukharian Jews reside in New York City, settled into close-knit communities and existing as a quintessential American immigrant group. For Bukharian immigrants, music is an essential part of their communal self-definition, and musicians frequently act as cultural representatives for the group as a whole.
Ezro Malakov, master singer, tradition bearer, and leader of the Bukharian Jewish community, performs with the Ezro Malakov Maqom Ensemble for Dr. Rapport’s talk which promises to be an engaging discussion of the transformation of Bukharian identity through music. The Jewish Music Forum, a project of the American Society for Jewish Music, sponsors the talk, with additional support from the American Jewish Historical Society.
Dr. Evan Rapport is Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at Eugene Lang College and The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music His interests include American music, Jewish musical life, intersections of composition and improvisation, music and poetry of Iran and Central Asia, and issues of ethnicity, race, and representation. He has published on subjects as wide ranging as punk rock’s relationship to the blues, arrangements of George Gershwin’s concert works, the idea of “ethnic music” in New York, and rap music.
Ezro Malakov was born in 1938 in Shahrisabz, Uzbekistan, into a prominent family of rabbis and singers. He moved to Tashkent in 1976, where he sang in the Uzbekistan national tv and radio orchestra. Since arriving in New York in 1992, Mr. Malakov has served as a cantor at one of the most important Bukharian synagogues in Queens and sparked renewed interest in Bukharian religious music. He has performed at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Carnegie Hall, the Jewish Music Festival (San Francisco), and the Fez Festival of World Sacred Music (Morocco).