Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Yiddish Stars Turn Out for Adrienne Cooper

Stars of contemporary Yiddish culture turned out for an emotional gala memorial concert honoring Yiddish diva Adrienne Cooper, an influential performer, teacher and composer.

Image by adriennecooper.com

Cooper died one year ago of cancer at the age of 65.

A powerful stage presence, Cooper worked at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in the 1970s and 1980s, and in 1985, with Henry Sapoznik, co-founded Klezkamp, an annual, multi-generational Yiddish folk arts program that takes place at the end of December.

Called A Kholem/Dreaming in Yiddish, the memorial concert was held Saturday night at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College in New York and streamed live on the internet.

Its line-up included pioneers of the Klezmer and Yiddish music revival such as the Klezmatics, Zalmen Mlotek, Michael Alpert, Eleanor Reissa, Frank London and Henry Sapoznik, as well as younger performers, such as DJ Socalled, Daniel Kahn, and Michael Winograd, who have channeled traditional Jewish roots music into contemporary art forms.

Also appearing were Cooper’s partner, the pianist Marilyn Lerner; her daughter, the singer Sarah Gordon; the poet Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, who in 2005 became the first Yiddish poet or musical figure to receive a National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowship; Yiddishist writer and humorist Michael Wex; and many other top performers in the field.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.