Shalshelet 6th International Festival of New Jewish Liturgical Music
We want to be sure you know about the March 15 2015 deadline for submissions of music to Shalshelet’s 6th International Festival of New Jewish Liturgical Music which wlll take place in Philadelphia on December 13-15, 2015. Shalshelet Festival is interested in music of any style, composed by people of any age and background, that is a new setting of traditional/liturgical Jewish text.
There is more information at www.Shalshelet.org/submission
.
For questions about the submissions process or the Festival, contact:
Shalshelet@newjewishmusic.com.
Please share this with anyone who might be interested.
Sarah Hyams
Executive Director
Shalshelet: The Foundation for New Jewish Liturgical Music
www.Shalshelet.org
240.715.4249
Ilana Cravitz has released a new book exploring traditional klezmer music. It’s a teaching guide, accompanied by a CD, and helps the student delve into the style of klezmer playing. Seckund and bass parts pull out for handy playing with friends. Cravitz explains bowing techniques, includes a brief history of klezmer, and the modes of each piece. Each of the sixteen tunes has a listening track to help learn performance technique. She also gives suggestions for effective variations and interpretations from the written score. In the appendix is a helpful chart explaining the dance style that goes with the various tunes, a Yiddish glossary and pronunciation guide, a bibliography and a discography. She also gives helpful suggestions about arranging melodies in sets, or groups of tunes that will work well together without a break.… 
The music world involved in the revival of Jewish national music or recovery of early twentieth century art music of the first order will be dazzled by the new critical edition of Leo Zeitlin’s Chamber Music published by AR Editions, and edited by musicologist and professors Paula Eisenstein Baker and Robert S. Nelson. Texts are presented in original Yiddish, Hebrew, transliterations and English translation. 
Matthew Lazar, Conductor
Debbie Friedman has released a new CD “As You Go On Your Way: Schacharit –The Morning Prayers”. This just released CD has a combination of Debbie’s compositions and melodies to the liturgical texts of the Shacharit, the morning service. Some of the songs on the album are new, but many were composed as long ago as 1972. In a way this retrospective is a perspective piece. The “traditional” repetitions, for example are where the text is more traditional (for example, in the Amidah, the Imahot are included in the non- traditional setting.) The album helps the listener integrate the familiar tunes of Friedman with some chanting of segments of the service. Friedman states in her album “By praying we can understand how each Bracha, each blessing, helps us build a balanced and grateful life.
