“Di Sheyne Milnerin” (Feb. 14th) and “A Yiddish Winterreise” (Feb. 16th)

Acclaimed bass-baritone Mark Glanville and Pianist Alexander Knapp will
give two unusual programs at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space in
February featuring the Yiddish song repertoire.
Tickets $25; Members,
Students, Seniors $20; Day of Show $30

On Monday, February 14th at 7:30 PM the duo will perform the United States
premiere of ‘Di Sheyne Milnerin’ (‘Die Schöne Müllerin’) is a specially
devised cycle of songs from the Yiddish repertoire, only the second time a
collection of Yiddish song has been forged into a cycle with a coherent
dramatic trajectory.

Monday, February 14th, 7.30 p.m.
“Di Sheyne Milnerin (A Yiddish “Die Schöne Müllerin”)
USA Première
Symphony Space
2537 Broadway
New York, NY 10025
(212) 864-5400
http://maps.google.com/maps/place?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&q=Symphony+Space+NYC&fb=1&gl=us&hq=Symphony+Space&hnear=New+York,+NY&cid=14104568892703723774&z=14
New York City

Wednesday, February 16th, 7.30 p.m.
“A Yiddish Winterreise: Elegy for a Vanished World”
New York Première
Symphony Space
New York City

Sunday, February 20th, 3.00 p.m.
“A Yiddish Winterreise: Elegy for a Vanished World”
Chicago Première, under auspices of Sunday Salon Series
Preston Bradley Hall
Chicago Cultural Center
Chicago

Yiddish Repertoire Featured in Two Unusual Recitals at Symphony Space:

In some instances arrangements and compositions by important Jewish
musicians and composers of the past such as Janot Roskin and Lazar Weiner, have
been used, but their intention is always to extend and enhance that great
tradition, so keeping it alive and vibrant. Eight of the songs in ‘Di Sheyne
Milnerin’ are given in completely new, original arrangements by the eminent
Jewish musicologist and pianist, Alexander Knapp and one of the songs, ‘
Himen’, a setting of the eponymous Abraham Sutzkever poem, is an entirely
original composition by Alexander Knapp. It serves, among other things, as our
tribute to the great Yiddish poet in the year of his death.
On Wednesday, February 16th, also at 7:30 PM, a stark contrast to the
first recital s a Holocaust-focused program, “A Yiddish Winterreise: Elegy for
a Vanished World.”

This program allows the duo to explore and reveal different aspects of the
Yiddish tradition. As in Schubert’s original, ‘Die Schöne Müllerin’ (the
beautiful miller girl) from which it takes its name, it tells a story of
unrequited love. Our Jewish hero, though also a miller, is an older man with
more than a little of Don Quixote about him, prone to tip at his own
windmills and women who fit his idealized notion of love. Does he ever actually
make contact with Reyzele, the object of his affection, or does he commune
with her only in his dreams? Whatever the case, his sense of pain at being
rejected in favor of the thief (replacing the hunter of the original cycle)
who has stolen her from him is the same.

For this English due, both recitals are part of an American tour that
beginning at the at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC the previous week.

Mark Glanville bass baritone
Mark Glanville read Classics and Philosophy at Oxford University before
winning a scholarship to study singing at the RNCM and the National Opera
Studio, going on to make his debut with Opera North. Roles for that company
include The King of Clubs (Love for Three Oranges), the King (Aida), Nourabad
(Pearl Fishers) and Father (The Jewel Box). For Scottish Opera he has sung
Commendatore (Don Giovanni), for Lisbon Opera, New Israeli Opera and Opera
Zuid The King of Clubs, and for Opera Omaha Ferrando (Il Trovatore.) On
the concert platform he has performed as bass soloist with Lord Menuhin,
Daniele Gatti, Pascal Tortelier, Sir David Willcocks and Stanislaw
Skrowaczewski. Recordings include A Yiddish Winterreise, Donizetti’s L’Assedio di
Calais and Anna Bolena and Schubert Mass in G. His memoir The Goldberg
Variations was shortlisted for the Wingate Prize for Jewish Literature and the
National Sporting Club Award.

Alexander Knapp piano
Alex Knapp graduated from Selwyn College, Cambridge, with MA, MusB, and
PhD degrees in music, and he has also been awarded ARCM, LRAM and HonARAM
diplomas. Over a period of more than 40 years, he has published and lectured
on the subject of Jewish music in the UK, Ireland, Holland, Sweden, Germany,
Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Greece, Israel, USA, Russia,
Eastern Siberia and China. As well as composing, arranging, conducting,
broadcasting, and performing as pianist in the UK, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania,
Russia and USA, Alex Knapp has been involved as consultant and accompanist to
cantors and choirs on several commercial recordings of Jewish music. His set
of Four Sephardi Songs (arranged for voice and piano) was published in New
York in 1992, and his Elegy for String Orchestra in Jerusalem in 1997. In
1998, his anthology of essays on Jewish music was brought out in Chinese by
the Music Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Arts in Beijing
under the title Youtai Yinyue Lunwenji. Among numerous other articles, he has
contributed entries on aspects of Jewish music to The New Grove Dictionary
of Music and Musicians (second edition). He has been appointed to academic
and administrative posts at Wolfson College, Cambridge; at London’s
Goldsmiths’ College, Royal College of Music, City University; and most recently
(1999-2006) to the Joe Loss Lectureship in Jewish Music at SOAS

*****
‘Di Sheyne Milnerin’ – A Yiddish ‘Die Schöne Müllerin’

Devised and performed by Mark Glanville (Bass-Baritone) with
original arrangements and composition by Alexander Knapp (Piano)
1. Dem Milners Trern – (words and music by M Warschawsky, arr. J Roskin)
2. Reyzele – (words and music by M Gebirtig, arr. S Secunda)
3. Du shaynst vi di Zun – (words by I Lillian, music by I Trilling)
4. Der Nayer Sher – (traditional)
5. Dodi li – (words from the “Song of Songs”, music by N Chen, arr. A
Knapp)
6. Tumba – (traditional, arr. A Knapp)
7. Klip-klap (traditional, arr. Janot Roskin)
8. Bistu mit mir Broygez – (O Ben-Amots, arr. A Knapp)
9. Nokh der Arbet – (‘Am Feierabend’ from Die Schöne Müllerin by Franz
Schubert, words by Wilhelm Muller, translated into Yiddish by Heather
Valencia)
10. Shma Yisroel – (words by B Thomashefsky, music by JM Rumshinsky, arr.
P Henning)
11. Himen – (words by A Sutzkever, music composed by A Knapp)
12. A Sheyn Lid hob ikh Gezungen – (traditional arr. J Roskin)
13. Dem Gonefs Yikhes – (traditional, arr. A Knapp)
14. Tsvey Taybelekh – (Y L Cahan/L Levitsky, arr. A Knapp)
15 Vu iz dos Gesele – (Y L Cahan, arr. A Knapp)
16. A Gebet – (words by J Rolnik, music by L Weiner)
17. Ikh hob dikh tsu fil lib – (words by C Tauber, music by A
Olshanestsky)
18. Ongenumen zikh mit Tsores – (words by A Reisen, music by I Schermann)
19. Es Drimlen di Lodns – (traditional, arr. A Knapp)
20. Di Zun vet Aruntergeyn – (words by M Halpern, music by B Yomen, arr.
A Knapp)

A Yiddish Winterreise
This program is a musical journey created by bass-baritone Mark Glanville
and pianist Alexander Knapp, which has been released in the UK and the USA
on the Naxos label. A Yiddish Winterreise is a sequence of songs from the
Yiddish repertoire which recreates the original Schubertian journey, but in
a Holocaust context. The protagonist – a badkhn or “wedding singer” –
reflects on the life and world he has just seen destroyed as he flees the Vilna
ghetto. The year 2011 marks the 70th anniversary of the liquidation of the
Vilna ghetto, and the performances given will be intended to mark and
commemorate that dreadful atrocity. But A Yiddish Winterreise also recognizes
that for every Goering who would reach for his revolver when he hears the
word culture, there is a Schubert who set a Hebrew psalm for his friend
Salomon Sulzer, the celebrated Viennese cantor and composer who sang his songs.
Jews had been great contributors to and beneficiaries from German culture..
This wonderful symbiosis is another victim of the Holocaust which the
programme commemorates. In fact, the German Embassy in London has been a major
backer of the CD project. A Yiddish Winterreise should also be seen as a
means of recognizing and supporting modern day victims of persecution and
genocide. A performance such as the one given a couple of years ago to raise
money for Darfuri refugees is central to the ethos of this project.

Thursday, February 10th, 7.30 p.m.
“A Yiddish Winterreise: Elegy for a Vanished World”
USA Première, under auspices of Pro Musica Hebraica
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater
Washington DC

Monday, February 14th, 7.30 p.m.
“Di Sheyne Milnerin (A Yiddish “Die Schöne Müllerin”)
USA Première
Symphony Space
New York City

Wednesday, February 16th, 7.30 p.m.
“A Yiddish Winterreise: Elegy for a Vanished World”
New York Première
Symphony Space
New York City

Sunday, February 20th, 3.00 p.m.
“A Yiddish Winterreise: Elegy for a Vanished World”
Chicago Première, under auspices of Sunday Salon Series
Preston Bradley Hall
Chicago Cultural Center
Chicago