Extending the Tradition: KlezKanada, Klezmer (original) (raw)
Related papers
Extending the Tradition: KlezKanada, Klezmer Tradition and Hybridity
Musicultures, 2012
This paper examines the way in which klezmer revival institutions, particularly KlezKanada, contradict many of the notions that are generally held of revival movements. Both historical klezmer music and its revival have long histories of incorporating musical styles both of other minority groups, as well those of the dominant majority culture. This paper shows how the communities created within the klezmer revival are constantly recreating their "tradition," and are responsible for an environment in which musical experimentation is not only accepted, but valued. Résumé : Cet article examine la manière par laquelle les institutions de renouveau du klezmer, en particulier KlezKanada, contredisent nombre des idées que l'on se fait en général des mouvements de revival. La musique historique klezmer et son renouveau ont tous deux de longues histoires d'incorporation de styles musicaux, tant des autres groupes minoritaires que de ceux de la culture majoritaire dominante. Cet article montre comment les communautés qui se créent au sein du revival du klezmer recréent constamment leur « tradition » et sont responsables d'un environnement dans lequel l'expérimentation musicale est non seulement acceptée, mais valorisée.
The Multiple Voices of American Klezmer
Journal of the Society for American Music, 1 (3). pp. 367-92, 2007
Over the past three decades, klezmer music has undergone a revival and a radical transformation from virtual obscurity to a staple in the European American world music scene. Although the fusion of instrumental and vocal genres under a single musical umbrella is a significant marker of change between the Old World and revived klezmer repertories, the extension of the boundaries of the klezmer repertory to encompass vocal material has largely been overlooked by practitioners and scholars. This article reinstates song in the narrative of the klezmer revival, exploring how and why it has assumed its prominent position. In case studies of three ensembles, song gives insight into the sensibilities of individual musicians and offers a prism through which to consider contemporary klezmer as both an American Jewish heritage music and a world music genre. Reinstating song into the discussion of contemporary klezmer provides a more nuanced account of the global klezmer phenomenon. xxx
From Folksmentshn to Creative Individuals: Klezmer Transmission in the Twenty-First Century
During the mid-1970s, American Jewish musicians active in a variety of musical genres took an interest in eastern European Jewish roots music. This efflorescent enthusiasm for it came to be known as the klezmer revival. In 1985 Henry Sapoznik founded the first klezmer institute. Since then, numerous institutes have sprung up across North America and Europe. Despite their emergence as one of the most popular formats for the enactment of community and for learning Yiddish cultural expressions, klezmer transmission has rarely been the focus of scholarly attention. This article contends that revivalists and subsequent generations have created an ethos for a music culture through transmission processes, demonstrating veneration both for an "authentic" Jewish cultural heritage and for individualized cultural expressions. Résumé : Au milieu des années 1970, les musiciens juifs américains pratiquant divers genres musicaux commencèrent à s'intéresser aux racines musicales des Juifs d'Europe de l'Est. Cet enthousiasme bourgeonnant envers celles-ci en vint à être connu sous le nom de renouveau du klezmer. En 1985, Henry Sapoznik fonda le premier institut klezmer. Depuis lors, de nombreux instituts ont fleuri à travers toute l'Amérique du Nord et l'Europe. Bien qu'elle soit apparue comme l'une des formes les plus populaires de représentation communautaire et d'apprentissage des expressions culturelles yiddish, la transmission du klezmer a rarement fait l'objet de l'attention des chercheurs. Cet article soutient que les acteurs du renouveau et les générations suivantes ont créé un éthos de la culture musicale par le biais de processus de transmission qui fait montre d'une vénération à la fois pour un patrimoine culturel juif « authentique » et pour des expressions culturelles individualisées.
Migration and Remembrance – The Sounds and Spaces of Klezmer Music ‘Revivals
2008
This article discusses the cultural meanings of recent revivals in Yiddish music in the USA and central Europe. It does this with reference to Adorno's critique of lyrical celebration of the past as a means of forgetting. It examines the criticisms that recent 'Jewish' cultural revivals are kitsch forms of unreflective nostalgia and considers the complexity of meanings here. It then explores the ways in which klezmer might be an aural form of memory and suggests that revivals can represent gateways into personal and collective engagement with the past. It further argues that experimental hybrid forms of new klezmer potentially open new spaces of remembrance and expressions of Jewish identity.
Migration and Remembrance – sounds and spaces of klezmer revivals
This paper discusses the cultural meanings of recent revivals in Yiddish music in the US and central Europe. It does this with reference to Adorno’s critique of lyrical celebration of the past as means of forgetting. It examines the criticisms that recent ‘Jewish’ cultural revivals are kitsch forms of unreflective nostalgia and considers the complexity of meanings here. It then explores the ways in which klezmer might be an aural form of memory and suggests that revivals can represent gateways into personal and collective engagement with the past. It further argues that experimental hybrid forms of new klezmer potentially open new spaces of remembrance and expressions of Jewish identity.
Gypsy/Klezmer Dialectics: Jewish and Romani Traces and Erasures in Contemporary European World Music
Ethnomusicology Forum, 2015
As klezmer and Balkan Romani music have become popularised in Western Europe since 1989, an increasing number of performers in both of these genres are non-Roma and non-Jews. This holds especially true for the new performance complex Gypsy/ klezmer that imputes connections between two of Europe’s quintessential Others, and, in transforming their ethnic specificities into a generic hybridity, facilitates the appropriation of their cultural goods by outsiders. I interrogate this complex and its semiotic conflation of Jews (absent Others constituted historically as over-present) and Roma (too-present Others who are historically absent) in the current European political climate that is multiculturalist but increasingly xenophobic. I note that Gypsy/klezmer performers claim a double authenticity based on a kind of hybridity that validates appropriation. I argue that specificities of Romani and Jewish geography, history and musical style are erased precisely as the Gypsy/klezmer complex becomes more popular.
Slavic Review, 2018
Book Reviews regarding Chagall's date and place of birth; although this information is important, such lengthy discussion is not very necessary. Another inaccuracy occurs in the description of the reasons for the help given by David Shterenberg to Chagall (113). Somehow, the author fails to mention that both artists had studios in the famous La Ruche in Paris before the First World War, which explains their strong bond in post-revolutionary years. Martinovich's book is nominally composed of three sections. The first deals with myths and mistakes which have often occurred in Chagall's biographies. It also offers an account of Chagall's return to Vitebsk from Paris. The second part describes Chagall's post-revolutionary work in Vitebsk, his conflicts with the artist Mstislav Dobuzhinsky and art-critic Aleksandr Romm, and his contradictory new rules and monopolistic control of his art school specializing in artistic production in Vitebsk. It also highlights the earlier dominant role of Chagall and the later hegemony of Malevich. The final chapter deals with the oblivion of people in Vitebsk toward Chagall and his oeuvre, as well as the broader contemporary attitude toward Chagall in Belorussia. With the new wave of interest in Chagall's life and work in Vitebsk, which will likely only be accelerated by the upcoming exhibition at the Pompidou Centre in Paris called Chagall, Lissitzky, Malévitch: L'avant-garde Russe à Vitebsk (1918-1922), this book makes a valuable contribution to the field of Russian art history. Martinovich brings out the hallucinatory vigor of Chagall's visionary life, and also the extreme solipsism of his personality. It is a well-written, compassionate portrait of a paragon of human talent and ambition confronted by misunderstanding and mediocrity.