The 92nd STREET Y PRESENTS MUSIC & DANCE OF THE JEWISH TRADITION
SONGS OF LOVE & LONGING AROUND THE JEWISH WORLD
Thursday, Oct. 26, 2006
8:00pm
92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Avenue @ 92nd Street
TICKETS $30
THE YIDDISH VOICE OF LOVE: SONGS OF BEYLE SCHAECHTER-GOTTESMAN
Michael Alpert, artistic consultant.
Yiddish musicperformed by a blockbuster crew, with Michael Alpert: vocals, drums, violin,
Sharon Bernstein: vocals, Adrienne Cooper: vocals,
Rebecca Kaplan: vocals, Janet Leuchter: vocals,
Miryem-Khaye Seigal: vocals, Paula Teitelbaum: vocals,
Deborah Strauss: violin, Marilyn Lerner: piano, Peter
Rushefsky: cimbalom
To purchase tickets 212-415-5500
JMWC Recommendation: “Not to be Missed”!
BEYLE SCHAECHTER GOTTESMAN
TEACHER, POET, SONGWRITER
The first concert, on Thursday, October 26, 2006 at
8 PM, is The Yiddish Voice of Love: Songs of Beyle
Schaechter-Gottesman. Featuring the work of teacher,
songwriter, and one of America’s premier Yiddish
Poets, Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, the evening
celebrates this inspirational woman’s incredible
legacy. A recipient of the National Heritage
Fellowship (awarded by the National Endowment for the
Arts), Schaechter-Gottesman has been a driving force
for generations of Yiddish singers, including those
who have performed her songs as part of the Klezmer
revival of the last two decades. The performance
features an ensemble of Yiddish musicians and
vocalists: Michael Alpert (vocals, drums, violin),
Sharon Bernstein, Adrienne Cooper, Rebecca Kaplan,
Janet Leuchter, Miryem-Khaye Seigal, and Paula
Teitelbaum (vocals), Deborah Strauss (violin), Marilyn
Lerner (piano), and Peter Rushefsky (cimbalom).
Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman was born in Vienna,
Austria, but was raised in pre-war Romania, one of the
centers of Yiddish intellectual culture. She survived
the Holocaust in the ghetto in Czernowitz and came to
the United States in 1951. Active as a teacher and
songwriter, she began to write poetry and gained a
reputation as one of America’s premier Yiddish poets.
Many of her songs cover a wide range of subjects from
subway musicians, to personal reminiscences, to
descriptions of street life in her hometown, the
Bronx. The renaissance of klezmer music in the United
States allowed her large repertoire of traditional and
original material to be performed by many artists.
Schaechter-Gottesman has been acclaimed as one of the
great living unaccompanied ballad singers. She takes
great pride in her work with children, writing songs
especially for them and performing frequently for
young audiences. In 1998, she was
inducted into the People’s Hall of Fame by the
organization City Lore based in
New York City. In 2005 she received a National
Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship,
one of the highest cultural honors given by a United
States government agency.