Smithsonian festival to include Yiddish concert, blintzes and pickling workshops
The annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival celebrates contemporary cultural traditions from around the world.
Photo by YIVO
By Forverts Staff June 30, 2023
A concert of Yiddish folk songs and classical works inspired by century-old works from YIVO’s archives will take place at this year’s Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington D.C.
The YIVO event includes several newly commissioned works by Judith Shatin, Aaron Kernis, Lainie Fefferman and Alex Weiser. There will also be a singalong and workshops exploring Yiddish music from the YIVO collections, hosted by Weiser and YIVO sound archivist and Grammy-winning artist Lorin Sklamberg. Performers include Sklamberg, Lucy Fitz Gibbon, Ryan McCullough and Yurie Mitsuhashi.
The concert will take place on Thursday, July 6, from 2-3 p.m. ET in front of the National Museum of American History and will also be livestreamed. It’s part of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival produced annually by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. The festival honors contemporary cultural traditions and celebrates those who practice and sustain them.
“The centuries-old tradition of Yiddish folk song includes beautiful and poignant lyrical reflections on Jewish culture and life,” said Weiser, a Pulitzer finalist for music composition and YIVO’s director of public programs. “While archives like YIVO’s preserve this tradition for study, the creative imaginations of musicians and composers are essential to interpreting its meaning anew for each generation.”
In addition to the musical events, YIVO has arranged for a series of Ashkenazi food workshops led by Gefilteria’s Liz Alpern and Jeffrey Yoskowitz on blintzes and pickling. They will also participate in a session about pickling traditions across America with expert forager Susan Belsinger. The blintzes workshop will be online but the pickling sessions are in-person only.
“We are moved that our work reclaiming and reimagining Ashkenazi cuisine will be recognized alongside culture-bearers of all kinds — craftspeople, dancers, musicians, and yes, cooks — who will be celebrating the diversity and richness of living American traditions,” Alpern said. “We look forward to sharing the art of Ashkenazi pickling, cheesemaking and more with visitors from across the country and the world,” said Liz Alpern of Gefilteria.
The festival will take place on the National Mall between 12th and 14th streets, in front of the National Museum of American History.
To attend the concert online, click here.
To attend the blintz workshop online, click here.
