"Klezmer Melody Book" - iPhone app
Daniel Ori writes:
Since the release of our Classical Melody Book, we've had many people ask in regards to Jewish sheet music on the iPhone/iPad, and we're happy to introduce this new app.
The Klezmer Melody Book comes with a free compilation of sheet music for over 100 Jewish Traditional, Religious, Klezmer, Sephardic/Ladino, Chasidic, Yiddish, Cantorial, Simcha Party and Israeli folk melodies/songs (we are constantly expanding our archive). The sheet music is reliable and clear, and provided by the well known Tara Publications (Jewishmusic.com). We have a great melody search feature that allows a quick find for any forgotten Jewish melody you may have by playing the first 6 notes of the melody. You can also import and share sheet music via email or print as well as create personalized set lists for performance.
More about the Klezmer Melody Book app at www.themelodybook.com/klezmer
Here is the iTunes store link: itunes.apple.com/us/app/klezmer-melody-book-jewish/id480554890?mt=8
The Melody Book—We are a New York based start up software development company, Our goal is to release music related applications that will enhance and support amateur and professional musicians in their creative work.
Shalom ve Toda,
Daniel Ori
Tel: 857-488-0127< br /> E-mail Daniel Ori
Very happy to announce that our klezmer-feminist-historical-magic realism audio drama, "The Witches of Lublin", has been nominated for three Audie Awards! Co-written by Ellen Kushner (of PRI's "Sound and Spirit"), Elizabeth Schwartz and Yale Strom, with music by Strom, "The Witches of Lublin" was directed by Sue Zizza and stars Tovah Feldshuh, plus featured actors Neil Gaiman, Simon Jones, Barbara Rosenblat, and beloved actors from the Yiddish stage like Yelena Shumlenson, Sam Guncler and Joanne Borts. The music was performed by Strom, Sprocket, Alexander Fedouriok, Peter Stan and Schwartz (and the companion CD, "The Devil's Brides" with narration by Miriam Margolyes, is released by Arc Music UK). For more info: 
I have already mentioned this new Klezmatics release celebrating their 25th anniversary. The main CD release party is on 
David Chevan has been exploring Jewish and Afro-American spiritual music through the lens of jazz, for years. As I love mentioning, my first date with the person who is now my wife was at the CD release of one of his first efforts. The music gets better. David writes: "For most of the past decade the Afro-Semitic Experience has played the midnight Selichot service with Cantor Jack Mendelson at his synagogue in White Plains. We have, in the process, created a new way to accompany cantorial music and we decided to document it. We recorded three concerts in August, 2010 just before the High Holy Days, one in New York City, one in New Haven, Connecticut, and one in Greenfield, Massachusetts. And now that music is ready for you to hear. The new CD is called Further Definitions of the Days of Awe and it features the band with special guests Cantor Jack Mendelson, Cantor Lisa Arbisser, Cantor Erik Contzius, cantorial soloist Danny Mendelson, and trumpeter Frank London. The CD officially drops on Tuesday, September 13, but it is already on sale at iTunes and 
—if you want to hear the music first you can listen to three tracks for free at this website: 
If, like me, you have noticed that the fiery new violinist in the 
Jazzman Roger Davidson explores klezmer with some of my favorite musicians, including 
. The 
About a decade ago, Alicia Svigals recorded a pretty amazing CD of Hassidic nigunim under the name of the "Nikolayev Ensemble." In celebration of the decade since the original re-release, JewishLearningGroup.com maven, Zalmen Goldstein did the impossible: He improved upon the original. The cover is differently cheezy, and he has renamed the bass-player known to most of us as "Marty Confurious," but the production is even better. An unrelated first track by a different ensemble is gone. Aaron Alexander's outstanding drumming was added to the tracks. The result, quite frankly, is quite delicious. If you don't have the original, or if you're ready to compare the two, check out "
The festival that introduced me to the Klezmatics, Brave Old World, Bukharin music, and so much more is back for it's 26th year. This year they are following the 
Don’t miss cutting edge conversations about Jewish culture as great performers such as Achinoam Nini (Noa), The Klezmatics, Joshua Nelson, Judy Gold, Rami Kleinstein and Keynote David Broza gather together for the 5th annual Schmooze 11 the International Jewish Presenters Association Jewish culture conference. in New York City on January 11 & 12, 2011 at City Winery.
If I had the time, I would wax lyrical about a special evening sponsored by Hebrew College's 
Indeed, as Yehudi stated, and then proved with his playing and the singing of the actual pieces by such masterful voices, Lazar Weiner had an incredible gift for writing spare music, setting the words perfectly. And this music should be studied with German and Italian and French art song—it should not be relegated to an afterthought as though of interest only to musically-educated Yiddishists. This music is wonderful world heritage, not just Yiddish heritage. Wyner talked a little bit about the brief blossoming of Yiddish art song under the patronage of Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov, in both Moscow and St. Petersburg. Wyner didn't mention the St. Petersburg school by name, but scholars, or those who know just enough to have dipped into the recent 
KlezKamp 2010 will be held December 26-31, 2010 at the Hudson
Valley Resort and Spa in New York's Catskills Mountains.
Amsterdam will once again host the world's most exciting and innovative Jewish Music Festival: October 28-31, 2010. In addition to our unique competition, you can enjoy workshops, master classes, jam sessions, and the Jewish cultural marketplace.
I'd have more to say, but opinions on this country's health care system will have to go elsewhere. Anyone stupid enough to try to justify how we can pay any more for health care than any other country and have so many people underinsured/uninsured and put up with recision and denied covered the way we do, even for those allegedly insured, so that we rank at the bottom of other industrialized nations by any measure (other than money spent), should stay out of my sight. Call health care reform anything you want, but if you are not pushing for reform, you should consider yourself wilfully ignorant and thoroughly uninformed. You should be embarrassed and ashamed.
Nobody who knows fiddler & poet Alicia Jo Rabin's first, pre-Golem release, 
Yowza! The same wonderful folk festival that included Steven Greenman just a couple of years ago (and Margot Leverett not long before?) has snagged 
CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED LATINO-JEWISH URBAN COLLECTIVE HIP HOP HOODÍOS ANNOUNCES MAY 12TH RELEASE OF “CARNE MASADA: QUITE POSSIBLY THE VERY BEST OF HIP HOP HOODÍOS"
Ya'll know how, for years, I've been talking about how the KlezmerShack is going to get new code, get some new features, and move into the 21st century? I've been intending to move this site into an open source content management system called Drupal, which is the same tool that I recommended to the 
An Early 20th-century Sephardi Troubadour:
The Historic Recordings of Haim Effendi of Turkey
BROOKLYN MULTILINGUAL MC Y-LOVE TEAMS UP WITH CROWN HEIGHTS SOUL RAPPER 'DESCRIBE' TO MUSICALLY FIGHT FOR "CHANGE"
… last night in St. John's, Newfoundland, at the Canadian Folk Music Awards, we (the Sisters of Sheynville) were presented with the "vocal group of the year" award. so now we are the proud owners of a (very heavy) beautiful glass sculpure… of course this is no competition to the American Music Awards, which were understandably given more room and attention even in Canadian media—but it was fun and we are thrilled! 
I am pleased to be able to announce the launch of my website 'Der yidisher gramofon' at: 
James Loeffler announces this new organization, of which he is the Research Director, and the groups' 
Cleveland native ‘on a roll’ with new klezmer piano CD, by Vivian Witt, Special to the Cleveland Jewish News.
Can you believe it? It is time for the 25th Anniversary concert of 
Marc Di Martino caught this one on his blog. The Klezmatics are coming back to Rome and playing a bigger venue than ever: "This time they're playing the prestigious Auditorium."
I got around to catching up with web stuff too late to get this into the calendar, but the "Shondes," the wonderfully-named band from Brooklyn about whom I 
When you think of New York City's Harlem, you may think of James Brown at the Apollo, Duke Ellington at the Savoy or Bill Clinton's offices on 125th Street. But did you know that Harlem was also home to large numbers of Eastern European Jews in the early 20th century? Some of the grandest brownstones in the Mount Morris Park neighborhood were Jewish family homes.
Elaine's profile from 
I've been a fan of the 
Dear Friends,
Living Traditions has just released a new CD anthology of the beloved Yiddish actor Zvee Scooler's selected radio performances, poetry, and even commercials. This is the first in a series in Living Traditions' releases—in the original Yiddish—of rare selections from the
Yiddish Radio Project archives.
Violinist 
The 
Yuval Ron, the LA-based musician whose new-agey middle eastern events are often covered in the KlezmerShack "
I don't watch TV, of course, but I was just taking a look over at Rokhl Kafrissen's "
From Piranha, comes this news about Frank London. Me, I'm holding out the the tribute album:
If you were paying attention to the latest Klezmatics' releases, you noticed that they were being distributed by a new music label, "Jewish Music Group." The write:
From the "Mendele" mailing list:
ZINGT! A CELEBRATION OF YIDDISH CHORAL MUSIC
the brand new CD with mainly never-before-recorded Yiddish choral music, is available!
From a recent email from SoCalled:
Rokhl Kafrissen, one of many brilliant writers wasted in the deadened layout of Jewish Currents (and don't get me started about their faux website) writes:
Mark Rubin's klezmer band, Rubinchik's Orkestyr, has 
Fellow KlezKanadanik Keith Wolzinger (author of the 
Transcontinental Music Publications releases Songbook and CD of Klezmer melodies many never before printed or heard since the Holocaust.
Those of us who remember the Center for Traditional Music & Dance back when it was the Balkan Arts Center as the source of the last Dave Tarras cassettes and several wonderful events, along with newer folks aware of the organization only by its current name, are pretty pleased by the following news:
To everyone who was a part of this concert, audience, workshop participant, performer, I just have to say, "thank you". It was sold out. The band was fabulous. The workshops were crowded and had a lot of fun (especially the one that I was co-moderating). Wow!
...the rocking klezmer band Golem has been signed to a 3 album recording contract with 
From 
News from Eric Stein, about to tour the southwest and California with his band, 
Mark Rubin hands off bass-playing duties to another band member as he takes vocals and guitar duties in this rooftop performance of the Hanukah classic: 
The sad saga of the gentrification of what was once Los Angeles' vibrant Jewish commerical district winds on as Hatikva Records prepares to close down its physical store, a place that has existed since the 1950s. Kirk Silsbee writes 
Janette Carter of Hiltons, Va., whose parents, A. P. and Sara Carter, and Aunt Maybelle made up the Carter family, widely regarded as the First Family of Country Music, has been given the National Endowment for the Arts Bess Lomax Hawes Award for service to folk and traditional arts. The award recognizes her lifelong advocacy of Appalachian music. In addition the endowment announced the annual recipients of its $20,000 National Heritage Fellowships. They are Eldrid Skjold Arntzen of Watertown, Conn., a Norwegian-American rosemaler, or flower-motif painter; Earl Barthé of New Orleans, a decorative building craftsman; Chuck Brown of Brandywine, Md., an African-American musical innovator; Michael Doucet of Lafayette, La., a Cajun fiddler, composer and bandleader; Jerry Grcevich of North Huntingdon, Pa., a Tamburitza musician and prim player; Grace Henderson Nez of Ganado, Ariz., a Navajo weaver; Wanda Jackson of Oklahoma City, an early country, rockabilly and gospel singer; Hermina Albarrán Romero of San Francisco, a paper-cutting artist; Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman of the Bronx, a Yiddish singer, poet and songwriter; Albertina Walker of Chicago, a gospel singer; and James Ka'upenaWong of Waianae, Hawaii, a Hawaiian chanter.
Brave Old World
"Thousands of people turned out Wednesday afternoon for the funeral of Israel Prize laureate Ehud Manor, who died Tuesday.
I noticed this on the Piranha catalog a couple of weeks ago and was too distracted to pass it on. Now it's official, from the Piranha email newsletter. Not sure when Rounder will bring it out in this country. Lorin? Frank?
BTW: Didja get the YOZ CD?? Curious to know what you think of it. I continue to dig it no matter what anybody thinks of it.
Greetings, folks!
Co-Sponsored by the KlezmerShack and Boston Workmen's Circle
Announcing the new Klezmatics cd - just in time for your holiday pleasure!
Steven Greenman's new CD project, "Stempenyu's Dream", is finally released. I last mentioned this 
I have finally finished the promised first phase of moving the KlezmerShack into a database-driven format as promised 
It's been long time since we last spoke and I hope you are well. I wanted to tell about my major recording project, "The Dream of Stempenyu". This is a recording of my original Klezmer and Jewish compositions all written in the traditional style. Everything has been recorded (January) and almost all mixed and I'm now writing liner notes and getting the booklet together. The release date will be in late June 2004. I have about 90 mins of music so it will be a double-CD in one package. I can't wait to share it with you. I'm the lead violinist and play with some great players including: Alan Bern, Stu Brotman, Michael Alpert, Zev Feldman, Alexander Fedoriouk, Pete Rushefsky and Mark Rubin. It's been an intense effort of raising the funds to make it all possible (and I'm still raising funds as we speak), doing all the logistical work and then finally playing all the tunes. The Cleveland commmunity has been most generous. The purpose of the project is to revitalize the Jewish violin repertoire and to continue the creativity of Jewish music composition all in the spirit of the great Stempenyu*. At some point I look to have a future publication of the music for all to play.
David Krakauer has released a live album, recorded last summer in his family's ancentral town, Krakow. The album, on France's notable jazz label, "
Just in time for my sanity and pleasure, Alan Bern sends the following news
Just announced - one of my favorite mid-'70s Israeli performing bands - here's the press release:
The first five compact discs of the historic multiyear recording series, the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music, are now available on the Naxos label. The discs can be ordered through the Milken Archive Web site at 
If the name "Lisa Rose" rings a bell among klezmer aficionados, it is probably because they recall her playing from Sandra Layman's astounding "
Di Eybike Mame (The Eternal Mother):
Women in Yiddish Theater and Popular Song, 1905-1929
The band is interviewed by NPR's Maria Hinojosa in the 
"It is
called Yahudice (the name for the Ladino language of the Jewish people in
Ottoman times). The CD presents Ladino repertoire that deals with urban
music from Istanbul, Izmir, Thessalonika, and Jerusalem. The songs have
been extensively researched by Hadass Pal-Yarden who is a singer and a
doctoral student of Ethnomusicology. She has painstakingly researched these
songs and preserved 14 of them on this CD in as authentic form as possible
using mostly Ottoman instruments and the typical clear, ornamental vocal
style of this music. Not only is the music on the CD lovely and an
historical record, but it comes with a book which contains 160 pages of
educational material about each song, its style, background, audio archival
sources, bibliography and discography)."
Jeanette Lewicki is better known to many of us as the accordion and voice of San Francisco's anarcho-klezmer street trio, "The Gonifs," or from her work with the 
I first heard this on NPR, but Dan Peck was kind enough to post details to the Jewish-music mailing list. It is a wonderful series, and I am very excited that it won this recognition. There are some interesting ironies that I'll get to after the announcement:
Lorin Sklamberg writes to the Jewish-Music mailing list, commenting on rereleases of the two earliest Klezmatics albums, with even more intensely welcomed news:
Jeffrey Schanzer writes:
Pete Rushefsky posts to the Jewish-music mailing list:
I was a Bob Wills fan already when I was in high school in Dallas, Texas. Mark Rubin's klezmer recording, "