Yiddish 101: Thoughts and Theory in Yiddish Music
Finally, it is Alan Bern's turn. Sadly, most of the scholarship students—the folks for whom these talks were especially being held—were long gone. This wasn't there sense of why there were here, I guess. They thought "music". We alte kakers were thinking "culture and history." And we're older than we were 30 years ago.
Memory is how we construct our sense of selves! Thank you Michael and Zev.
This is our 10th anniversary here. When the first KlezKanada started, there was KlezKamp, and that was about it. Now there are camps all over the world, from Paris to St. Petersburg to Los Angeles.
Weimar is in its 5th official year. 200 students spread out over 5 weeks? This year the theme was the relationship between Greco-turkish music w/klezmer. At Weimar we do a lot of team teaching and in evenings go out into the cafes and blow off steam. Here, at KlezKanada, it is a bit too much like Junior High—too many people and you can't know them all. Weimar is very small and very intense and has a very different character. One way we do that is to choose one subject a week and do it very intensely.
KlezKamp: Jeff Warschauer—it's back in the catskills. I was only a staffmember, not a coordinator. It is very successful. Similar, but indoors in the winter. A different set of people who tend to teach; some overlap. Well-organized through the artistic vision of Henry Sapoznik and Sherry Meyrent, and very organized in general.
YiddishkeytLA, KlezFest London
KlezFest London: Frank London—What was really fun was that it was shorter. It seemed really short. It felt like it was only four or five days, but what was amazing to me about KlezFest London was at the obligatory student concert the last day it was a really good concert. Four days earlier none of these people had played together. KlezFest was a lot about playing. Jeff: one thing that was interesting that for the first time, we had quite a crew from the former Soviet Union. Brought a lot of people who tend to be well-trained technically.
David Krakauer: Paris-been doing workshops in Paris. My impression of Jews in Paris years ago was that Jews in 1976 were very tentative about being seen. Now things have changed. It feels like Yiddish culture is starting to thrive and be "out".
Krakow: Zev—what about Krakow—not a teaching festival as much as performances and lectures.
So, what is the state of musicianship in all of these festivals? Will they all become franchises? (The Kahal strikes back!)
Does that mean that klezmer is on the way from being essentially disconnected from Jewish continuity, in much the same way that Irish music is not necessarly connected to Ireland or Irish culture as experienced by people in Ireland?
So, for some Jews, this will continue to be part of how they are Jewish, but that's not the same thing.
Hankus: There is very little going on in terms of study of klezmer or Yiddish music in ethnomusicology, possibly because there aren't any jobs in the field. (Judah Cohen for instance, was just hired by Indiana by the Jewish Studies program.)
Jewish cultural identity!
Deborah Strauss talks about the program she and Jeff Warschauer do at Columbia that always involves scholars.
[ari, to myself: but, here's the thing—as I wrote earlier, is the lack of Jewish Music studies at the university level because, as Alan Bern would state, that there is Jewish self-hate, or is it because klezmer is no longer the driving force behind Jewish culture today? It is music that we love, but is it necessarily Jewish music today, as opposed to an interesting and vital world music of ethnic origin? Isn't the music of Shlomo Carlebach, or Debbie Friedman far more relevant and vital within a Jewish context? If we are studying Jewish wedding music, and avoiding bands that include lots of 60s soul and general American dance music, wouldn't we look more closely at the Hasidic music scene? Is klezmer any more relevant to Jewish culture today than, say, blues is to black culture today?]
Alan: One of the things that is unusual in the klezmer revival is that the musicians are both theoreticians and practitioners, self-trained. [Frank: this is taking place in the UK, in Cuba. Alan: Sure, but there they have state support, as in the Sibelius academy. We don't have state support, or academic support.]
Alan: This is an example of culture developing on the margins, with the relative freedom that developing culture on the margins brings. But I am asking for opportunities for us, as theoreticians and performers, to get more support from the community to think and talk about what we do.
Alan: What are the libraries you have to refer to. What are the books you must read?
Me: Well, the KlezmerShack, and even moreso, the Jewish Music WebCenter have large bibliographies….
Me, to myself: But that isn't the point, is it. The bigger point is that Jews who have studied and revived a culture that was gone can't get academic positions to save their lives. There is nobody being paid to teach Jews about their own cultural history outside of places like klezkanada.