Midnight Prayer Answered

The new CD, “Midnight
Prayer” by the Joel Rubin Ensemble has been released. Clarinetist Joel Rubin
has long been considered to be one of the leading
performers of Jewish instrumental klezmer music in the
world today, earning accolades from sources as diverse
as klezmer giants Dave Tarras and Max Epstein,
international clarinet soloist Richard Stoltzman,
avant garde composer John Zorn, and Nobel Prize
Laureate and poet Roald Hoffmann. The ensemble also
features Hungarian cimbalom virtuoso Kálmán Balogh,
Italian accordion wizard Claudio Jacomucci and rising
klezmer star violinist David Chernyavsky, as well as
Ferenc Kovács (trumpet), Csaba Novák (bass), Sándor
Budai
(second violin) and Pete Rushefsky (tsimbl).

To order:
http://www.traditionalcrossroads.com/

For more information:
http://www.rubin-ottens.com


Midnight Prayer brings together two diverse, yet
partially overlapping repertoires: the instrumental
music of the klezmorim – the professional Jewish
instrumentalists who graced every traditional Jewish
wedding in Eastern Europe from at least the 16th
century onwards – and the mystical nigunim (religious
melodies of spiritual elevation) of the hasidic
movement. Recorded in four magical days at the
Operetta House in Budapest, Hungary, Midnight Prayer
creates its own sonic universe, full of depth,
virtuosity, playfulness and introspection. The
kaleidoscopic soundscape filters the many historical
layers of traditional Jewish music through the lenses
of the multifarious musical backgrounds of the band’s
members, ranging from classical to Gypsy to free jazz
to contemporary art music. Here the interaction of a
great improvising jazz ensemble melds with the
delicacy of a chamber music group and the drive of a
hot wedding band at the cusp of klezmer, Roma and
other Eastern European traditions.

The ensemble will also be in residency at the University of Virginia Sunday, Feb 4th – Tuesday, Feb 6th, 2007.

Joel Rubin is Professor of Assistant Professor, Director of Music Performance at the McIntire Department of Music, University of Virginia. Education: Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from City University of London, BFA in Clarinet Performance from State University of New York, College at Purchase.

Research Interests: Ornamentation, improvisation and modality; music and trauma; music and professionalism; music and immigration; music and diaspora; music and identity; music and religion; folk music revivals; musical hybridity; Jewish musical traditions (klezmer, hasidic, American Jewish popular music, Middle East and beyond); art and urban popular traditions of the Balkans, Turkey and the Middle East.