Who’s Who in KlezFest, Ot Azoy!
and the Jewish Song School 2006
posted 14 January 2006
- Stuart Brotman:bass, tsimbl, percussion
- Barry Davis: Ot Azoy! film programme
- Christian Dawid: clarinet
- Peysakh Fiszman: Ot Azoy! Yiddish programme
- Joshua Horowitz: accordion and Tsimbl
- Lily Kahn
- Shura Lipovsky: Yiddish song, Song School programme director
- Frank London: Programme Director
- Sanne Möricke: accordion
- Andreas Schmitges: dance
- Cookie Segelstein:violin
- Merlin Shepherd: clarinet, dance band leader
- Polina Shepherd: accompanist, Yiddish vocal ensembles
- Deborah Strauss: fiddle
- Karsten Troyke
- Heather Valencia
- Jeff Warschauer: plucked strings, cantorial improvisation
- KlezFest Assistant Faculty
KlezFest
Stuart Brotman (San Francisco):
bass, tsimbl, percussion
A
renowned performer with Brave Old World, Stuart is a sought
after teacher at KlezKamp KlezKanada, and at Balkan Music and Dance Workshops.
He has toured and recorded with many famous jazz and klezmer ensembles
and played cimbalom with Ry Cooder at Carnegie Hall. Stu also performs
roles for theatre, TV and film.
Christian Dawid (Berlin) clarinet
Christian Dawid is considered
one of today's leading klezmer clarinetists. He started by studying classical
music, moved on to explore diverse music styles, finally specializing
in Yiddish instrumental music. He has performed with Budowitz, Brave
Old World, Khupe, Theodore
Bikel, Paul Brody's Sadawi, Konsonans Retro, The Brotherhood
Of Brass and The Smyrna Trio, amongst Others. Christian Dawid teaches
regularly at festivals and academies from Canada to Russia.
Frank London (New York)
Programme Director
After leading a great programme for us in 2005, Frank London will once more inspire
KlezFesters in London with his special blend of immense musicality, vast knowledge
and innovation.
Innovative and creative founder-member
of Klezmatics and Klezmer Brass Allstars and many other world known ensembles,
Frank is now exploring cantorial music for trumpet and Jewish mystical songs
and performances with his Hasidic New Wave ensemble. He has written music for
theatre and ballet and is one of the most charismatic and respected members of
the current klezmer scene. He has performed and recorded with a showcase
of great names including John Zorn, Mel Torme, Maurice El Medioni and
Gal Costa, and is featured on over 100 CDs. Most recently he has performed
Woody Guthrie’s Chanukah songs.
Sanne Möricke (Berlin): accordion
Sanne is one of Europe
's most highly sought after klezmer accordionists. She studied ethnomusicology
in Amsterdam , accordion at Sweelinck Conservatory, and specialized in
Yiddish music. She is a teacher at international festivals, such as Klezkamp
and the Yiddish Summer Weimar.
Sanne Möricke has performed with Khupe,
Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars, Veretski Pass ,
Aufwind, Sukke , and with The
Northern Sinfonia ( UK ) amongst others and as a regular performer at
the Cracow Festival Of Jewish Culture.
Joshua Horowitz (San Francisco):
accordion and tsimbl
Founder
and director Budowitz Josh has performed and recorded
with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Veretski Pass and Rubin & Horowitz .
He has a Masters degree in Composition from the Academy of Music in Graz
, Austria , where he taught Music Theory and served as Research Fellow
and Director of the Klezmer Music Research Project for eight years. Horowitz
taught Advanced Jazz Theory at Stanford University with the late saxophonist
Stan Getz and is a regular teacher at The University of Vienna, KlezKamp,
The Albuquerque Academy and KlezKanada. He has published four books,
including The Sephardic Songbook with Aron Saltiel and The Ultimate
Klezmer, and he has written numerous articles on the counterpoint of
J.S. Bach. He is the recipient of more than 40 awards, including the
Prize of Honor for his orchestral composition, Tenebrae, presented
by the Austrian government. His music is featured in three films.
Cookie Segelstein (Madison, Connecticut):
violin
Cookie received
her Masters degree in Viola from The Yale School
of Music in 1984.She is the founder and director of Veretski Pass , a
founding member of The Youngers of Zion with Henry Sapoznik, and
plays in Budowitz. She presents lecture demonstrations and workshops
on klezmer fiddling all over the world, including at Yale University, University
of Wisconsin in Madison, University of Oregon in Eugene, Pacific University,
Marshall University, as well as in Weimar and Gelsenkirchen, Germany. She
was featured on the ABC documentary, A Sacred Noise , heard on HBO’s Sex
and the City, and on several recordings including the Veretski Pass self
titled release, the Koch International label with Orchestra New England
in The Orchestral Music of Charles Ives, The Protocols by The
Youngers of Zion, and Hazònes with Frank London, She
has published the popular music book series The Music of… , including Kale
Bazetsns and Doinas with Joshua Horowitz.
Andreas Schmitges: dance teacher
Andreas
Schmitges (dance, guitar, mandolin) has been an active member of the
klezmer scene for almost a decade, working in this field as a musician,
author, researcher and dancer. A fluent Yiddish speaker, Andreas has
attended Klezmer-Workshops and Yiddish Courses in Oxford, London, Weimar
and New York. He works as a teacher for Yiddish Dance at Festivals
in London, Kiev, Odessa and Weimar and has given concerts, dance- and
Klezmer-workshops at festivals of Jewish and Yiddish culture in Europe,
including London, Amsterdam, Enschede, Berlin, Munich, Gelsenkirchen
and Weimar. Andreas has performed internationally in Paris, London,
Washington D.C. and Amsterdam with his bands 'A Tickle In The Heart'
and 'Klezmer Alliance'. His highly successful collaboration with Yiddish
storyteller and teacher Pesakh Fiszman from New York in a Yiddish Music & Language
Programme has won high acclaim.
Merlin Shepherd (Brighton):
clarinet, Dance Band co-ordinator
Internationally acclaimed performer, composer and educator, Merlin has
developed a special method of teaching klezmer instrumentalists by ear,
which has influenced many teacher’s practises throughout the world.
Merlin has taught at many international Yiddish Arts Programmes in North
America and Eastern Europe. He has performed with The Burning Bush, and
Budowitz and is a regular member of Sukke and the Klezmer Brass Allstars.
He also leads the Sound & Light Cinematic Duo who play live accompaniment
to rare black and white silent Jewish films.
www.merlinshepherd.co.uk
Deborah Strauss (New York): fiddle
Deborah is internationally acclaimed as one of the finest of the contemporary
klezmer instrumentalists and as a true musical descendent of the most
eloquent traditional Jewish violinists. She is a member of the Strauss/Warschauer
Duo and was a long-time member of the Klezmer Conservatory Band and the
Chicago Klezmer Ensemble. As a violinist, singer and accordionist, Deborah
has appeared on numerous recordings. She is a beloved teacher of Yiddish
music and dance to students of all ages, and has taught for many years
at countless workshops throughout Europe and North America, including
KlezFest London, KlezKamp and KlezKanada.
Jeff Warschauer (New York):
plucked strings, cantorial improvisation
Internationally renowned mandolinist, guitarist, Yiddish singer and
teacher, Jeff is a member of the Strauss/Warschauer Duo and was a
long-time member of the Klezmer Conservatory Band. He is on the faculty
of Columbia University, a program director for KlezKanada, a long-time
instructor at KlezKamp and a frequent instructor for the Jewish Music
Institute/SOAS at the University of London. He is also a composer
whose music has been heard in films and theater productions, on Public
Radio International and on HBO. Jeff's solo CD, The Singing Waltz:
Klezmer Guitar and Mandolin, has received widespread critical acclaim.
The KlezFest Assistant Faculty are:
Helen Domergue dance assist
Ilana Cravitz fiddle assistant
Guy Shalom Technical showcase and percussion
Judith Silver
Ruti Halvani
and musicians from the former Soviet Union:
Efim Chiorny (Singer Moldavia)
Susanna Ghergus (pianist Moldavia)
Evgenia Slavina (singer, Russia)
Alexey Rozov (violin, Russia)
Evgeny Lizin (tsimbl, Russia)
With Veretski Pass resident band:
Cookie Segelstein-Violin (Viola), Joshua Horowitz-Tsimbl, (Chromatic
Button Accordion), Stuart Brotman-Bass (Basy, Baraban)
Veretski Pass offers
a unique and exciting combination of virtuosic musicianship and raw energy
that has excited concertgoers across the world. Between the three members
of this band, there are often seven instruments on stage; violin, viola,
tsimbl (hammered dulcimer), chromatic button accordion, bass, basy (three
stringed Polish folk cello) and baraban (Jewish bass drum with cymbal).
The
group took its name Veretski Pass from the mountain pass
in the Carpathians (Pereval Veretski, now in Ukraine ) through which
the emigrating Jews first settled in Transcarpathia, first reaching the
town of Mukachevo, or Munkacs. It was also the first point of entry of
the Magyar tribes into Europe in 896AD. Cookie's father was born in Nizhniye
Veretski at the base of this pass, her mother in Munkacs, and much of
the music comes from this region.
Playing in an unbound, energetic “village
style”, this band
of veterans plays klezmer music of historical Eastern Europe on original
instruments; melodies from Ukraine , Carpathian-Ruthenia, Bessarabia
and Rumania . Much of this rare music has been gleaned from field recordings
gathered by the musicians themselves in numerous trips throughout Europe
. With its colorful instrumentation and unique arrangements, this seminal
ensemble carries on the ancient tradition of klezmer musicians, playing
music of all kinds, but with a recognizably Jewish sound.
Carefully researched
regional styles combined with unrestrained energy gives this group its
unique sound, which has been called “raw, naked
and unashamed.” The music is always fresh, because nothing is
fixed except the style. Veretski Pass is capturing audiences
everywhere with its spontaneous and explosive renditions of the broad
repertoire of Eastern European Jewry.
Contact: Cookie Segelstein Tel: (203)245-3777 Mobile : (203)671-1584 Fax: (708)585-6190 cookie@veretskipass.com www.veretskipass.com
Jewish Song School Faculty
Shura Lipovsky (Amsterdam): Programme Director, Yiddish
song
Shura is one of the best-known singers of Yiddish song in Europe. She
has performed and taught also in Russia, the USA and Canada. She studied
singing at the Rotterdam conservatory and after finishing her formal education
she specialized in Judaic mysticism and dance. She is widely appreciated
for her teaching of the Yiddish song repertoire combined with contextual
study of the history and background of the composers and poets. She conducts
masterclasses for singers and workshops in Chasidic dances, songs and
stories.
Polina Shepherd (Brighton):
song accompanist,
vocal ensemble
Composer, singer, pianist and the leading choral conductor of Yiddish
song in the Former USSR. She has performed and taught internationally.
Her specially developed choral teaching methods are based on instrumental
ornamentation and Jewish modes. Performs with her own a capella ensemble,
‘The Vocal Quartet Ahkenazim’ and works with the Sound &
Light Cinematic Duo, who play live accompaniment to rare black and white
silent Jewish films. Polina's music is performed by choirs and soloists
all over the world.
www.ashkenazim.ru
Judith Silver (London):
Yiddish and new song is a musician and music facilitator, working across the
community. Much of her work concerns encouraging singing, either teaching songs
new to a group (usually harmony songs from all over the world), or sharing
classics. She is an established and respected singer/songwriter influenced
by Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and many others; her composition also includes
an increasing repertoire of unaccompanied harmony songs for groups. Within
a more specifically Jewish context, Judith has a wide and ever-increasing knowledge
and love of Yiddish songs, which she performs and teaches regularly, constantly
developing her own repertoire and working to improve at the language. Over
recent years, she has begun to lead a group of singers at Finchley Reform Synagogue
for the High Holy Days services. Her involvement with and interest in Jewish
music is growing all the time.
Karsten Troyke
...singer,
speaker and actor, song-writer with a strangely husky voice.
"A good song is always about what people everywhere are preoccupied
with: love and peace. Wherever people are hungry, they will strive to
eat. Thus, our cultures are not as different as the racists try to persuade
us. That is why the form or the language of a song is not important,
but the feelings of the person who sings it." Karsten Troyke
...born in 1960 in East Berlin which then lay in the German Democratic
Republic. His father - whose family had bought (to hide jewish parts
of the family) a so-called "Aryan Pass" - and his mother -
who came from a family of Communists and anti-Hitler resistance fighters
- saw to it that Troyke knew early on what to identify with and what
to reject.
Above all he identified with the Yiddish songs that his mother liked so much.
But she did not like to hear him sing; so he missed out on a singer's career:
he thought that a singer has to be discovered by a manager. It did not occur
to him that this was something one could work for. Instead, he worked as a
gardener and sang for and with friends. When he went public in 1982, he sang
what he had learned to love at home - international folk songs, ironical and
funny songs and those wrote himself; but more than any of the others, he loved
the Yiddish songs with their clear and, at the same time, tender language,
a language which several centuries ago grew out of German and has never been
the language of State power. He came to take on a job at home for mentally
handicapped children run by the ProtestantChurch, a job that shaped his life
for almost ten years. In his free time he performed songs and acted. Up to
1987 (when the first "Jiddische Kulturtage" took place in East Berlin)
there was no official platform for Yiddish culture, and the encouragement given
by the State to freelancers depended very much on the extent to which they
were willing to sell their souls. Thus, Troyke never became part of the accepted
cabaret-artist or song-writers' scene. None of them would have been able to
judge the results of his autodidactic Yiddish studies (Birnbaum's "Jiddische
Grammatik"), let alone the effort he put into collecting a large library
of Yiddish records, cassettes and old tapes. Private singing + Yiddish lessons
helped him to perform on the stage.
Only after the wall came down was Troyke able to make a living from singing
and to give concerts abroad; first with his interpretation of Yiddish songs
at the then still existing GDR Cultural Centres in Prague, Brno, and Budapest.
As an ambassador of Yiddish song art he started making trips to Jewish Communities
in Vienna and Paris. He also sang for the Jewish community during a visit to
Melbourne, Australia, and for the Yiddish Language Society in Jerusalem.
In Berlin Troyke occasionally made concerts with Russian, Turkish and other
musicians entitled: "Welcome Immigrants". In 1994 he had a concert
in Oslo, Norway, at the EdvardMuchMuseum, that was organized by both the German
and the Israeli Ambassade - it became a great meeting. Like his Tour through
the United States in 1995 and 98 (Northfield, Minneapolis, N.Y. City, N.J.,
Ohio). He also had performances in Poland, Danmark, Lithuania and Jewish Music
Festivals in Amsterdam and Brussels, Stockholm, Warsaw...
One of his CDs includes lost Yiddish songs from Poland, that he collected listening
Sara Bialas Sliwka, who survived ghetto and concentration camp during the Nazi-times.
Karsten Troyke presents us with all the many facets of the Yiddish stage, from
the old folk songs to well-known chansons in a Yiddish translation or Yiddish
theatre songs translated into German. He focusses the urban Yiddish songs.
Ot Azoy! Faculty
Barry Davis (London):
Film co-ordinator
Yiddish actor and scholar, Barry teaches Yiddish for the Spiro Ark and
the London Jewish Cultural Centre. Has coached Yiddish and acted in several
films.
Pesakh Fiszman (New York):
Yiddish language
Pesakh is one of the world’s favourite Yiddish teachers and story
tellers. His knowledge of the language and its literature and his humour
and care for students is legendary.
Lily Kahn
Lily Kahn teaches Yiddish at the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies,
University College London. She participated in the Yiddish Educator
Seminar at Vilnius University in 2005 and has recently taught on the Medem
Bibliotek's intensive 3-week Yiddish summer course in Paris. In
2002 she appeared in Khayele Beer's production of the Yiddish play Jacob
Jacobson and in 2006 she co-produced the UCL Purimshpil. She has
over eight years' language teaching experience including a post at the
British Foreign Office. She is currently conducting PhD research
at UCL on the language of Eastern European Jewish fiction.
Heather Valencia
Heather Valencia, formerly a lecturer in German, is now an Honorary
Research Fellow at the University of Stirling . She began studying Yiddish
in the mid 1980s and in 1991 completed a doctoral thesis on the poetry
of Abraham Sutzkever. She has taught on Yiddish summer programmes in Oxford
, Germany and Sweden , and has regular classes in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
She has published on Abraham Sutzkever, Yiddish writers in WeimarGermany,
and Yiddish writing in London . She edited a bilingual edition of the London
Yiddish play The King of Lampedusa and has produced an anthology
of Yiddish literature for students entitled Mit groys fargenign / With
Great Pleasure. Her English translation of Esther Singer Kreitman's
novel Diamonds is due to appear shortly.
Programme and faculty may vary.
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