This is the Forward’s coverage of Jewish music, including klezmer and other traditions.
Music
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The Schmooze Friday Film: Behind the Scenes of ‘Jewish Arena Rock’
“The Klezmatics are the Jewish equivalent of arena rock,” ethnomusicologist Bob Cohen deadpans early in Erik Greenberg Anjou’s documentary “The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground.” “They’re not heavy metal; they’re heavy Yiddish.” It’s a bit of tongue-in-cheek analysis calculated to make us chuckle (picture these mild-mannered, middle-aged folks head-banging in eyeliner and platform heels!) — and…
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Culture Conducting Crowds to the Beat of His Grandparents
Michael Tilson Thomas’s grandmom had trunks in her basement. A lot of our grandmothers had stuff stacked away. But our grandmoms were not Bessie Thomashefsky. “When I used to go visit my grandmother at her apartment in Hollywood, she had trunks in her basement and that was a special treat,” said Tilson Thomas, music director…
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The Schmooze Dance, Drink and Mayhem at Moscow’s Purim Bacchanale
For all of its charitable mishloach manot-giving and passive-aggressive gragger-shaking, Purim is hardly the tamest Jewish holiday. At its best (worst?) the celebration follows a sort of Bakhtinian carnivalesque disorder, with masks, public denunciations of the villain Haman and booze — lots of booze. With that in mind, one would expect Moscow, surely a world…
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The Schmooze Out With Punk, In With ‘Ounk’
Crossposted from Haaretz Man 25 considers itself a performance band in the full sense of the word. While other local indie bands save every penny in order to produce an album and release singles to be played on the radio, Man 25 views recorded materials as a calling card only. Drummer Tomer Tzur (30), guitarist…
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The Schmooze Monday Music: Wartime Songs for Gertrude Stein
There have been New York premieres of several noteworthy works recently, including major new violin concertos by Harrison Birtwhistle and James McMillan. But easily the most interesting was the grand finale of Lincoln Center’s Tully Scope Festival on March 18: Heiner Goebbels’s “Songs of Wars I Have Seen,” which uses passages from the remarkable book…
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The Schmooze Monday Music: A Simple Jew With a Touch of Gaga
Last month, the hugely popular Hasidic singer Lipa Schmeltzer, known simply as “Lipa,” released his latest album, “24/6,” a collection of cover songs currently popular at Hasidic weddings. The release comes almost exactly three years after the singer’s then-largest concert was banned by many prominent rabbis in the Haredi world, and it is only the…
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The Schmooze A Tenor for the People
Crossposted from Haaretz Without any fanfare or festivities, modestly and almost anonymously, Christoph Pregardien — one of the greatest lyric tenors of our time — landed in Israel a few days ago. It is hard to imagine a more impressive career than his: The greatest conductors conduct him, and he is hosted by the top…
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The Schmooze How the Violin Became the ‘Jewish National Instrument’
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree Just the other night, amidst the glorious surroundings of the Music Room of The Phillips Collection, whose walls are bedecked with one masterpiece after another, over 100 people gathered together under the aegis of George Washington University’s Program in Judaic Studies to hear Professor James Loeffler of the University…
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