KlezKanada

Life in Bonim

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 12:00:00 -0500

From the newsletter, by Renah and Keith Wolzinger

It's August 22, 2005, and the families of Bonim return once again, arriving by plane and by car, loaded with luggage, instruments, and of course snacks for the kids. Klez Kanada has become an annual reunion of families that come from across the U.S. For the past 6 years, the children have grown from toddlers to tweens and teens, and many have even become scholarship recipients. Technology being a big part of our kids lives, they keep in touch by email and instant messaging.

"Gitl Purishkevitsh"—Stories of Draft Resistance from many times and places

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 12:00:05 -0500

From the newsletter: A new piece of musical theatre based on a monologue by Sholem Aleichem, and created by Jenny Levison and Josh Waletzky is coming to life. Since the piece is about a mother getting her son out of the tzar's army, Jenny and Josh have been gathering oral histories of other draft resistors. Here is a first installment of those stories.

KlezKanada en español

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 12:00:10 -0500

from the newsletter: by Sergio Smilovich

primer reporte,

Estoy sentado enfrente de Ari davidov,

Me invita a escribir sobre klezkanada en castellano

sentado estoy en klezkabaret, lugar donde se improvisa especialmente durante la noche,

sirve de lugar de conferencias, teatro lugar de reunion, y es la noche, la noche cuando los sonidos klezmaticos salen a la luz de la luna,

la luz del tiempo

Papercut

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 12:00:15 -0500

From the Newsletter: Evelyn Maizels: Papercut inspired by Genesis 1:19—click on the papercut to see the entire image

וַיִּצֶר יהוה אֱלֹהִים מִן–הָאֲדָמָה כָּל–חַיַת הַשָּדֶה וְאֵת כָּל–עוֹף הַשָּמַיִם...

And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every foul of the air.

A newsletter is born! Issue 1

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 12:00:20 -0500

So, it was finally morning. Roberta and I meet after breakfast to figure out how to design and typeset a newsletter in two hours. I'm not sure how long it will take the office to reproduce it, but I'm figuring about an hour. Lunch is at noon. It is now nine. We go for a relatively large type face. A lot of the attendees are older. We don't want them to need magnifying glasses to read the newsletter. Roberta argues for a bit more leading than I might have given, but she is right.

I have no Yiddish text for this issue. It cannot be that a newsletter at KlezKanada fails to include Yiddish, so I mangle a bit of text that Peysakh has translated for me out of the daily calendar. I don't have room for the calendar, and don't have time to type in all the Yiddish. This will have to suffice. Then i remember the handout I typeset for Kolya the day before: A little Yiddish for Klezmorim. Ah. All is well.

The office copies, collates and staples 100 copies of the newsletter and we hand it out at lunch. All go within seconds. All day people will ask me for additional copies.

Here is a PDF of the August 23 KlezKanada newsletter as it was handed out (with a few minor corrections).

One of the goals of the newsletter is to present Yiddish typeset correctly (e.g., when it is translated, you will see that the Yiddish appears on the left hand side of the page: no dueling languages for this newsletter), and to present a cacophony of fonts and styles. It is embarrassing, of course, to return to the 500 fonts/page of early desktop publishers, but I want people to see Yiddish that looks interesting and evocative and especially, readable and exciting. So, there will be some cacophony to come. For today, not so much, but stay tuned.

Tuesday, in brief

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 23:10:44 -0500

Tuesday has been such a busy day. It was still chilly out. I had noticed yesterday, as well, that I tended to want to change to a long-sleeve shirt and jeans early, and I wasn't hearing as much jamming all around the campground. I am hoping that this is the weather, rather than some fundamental change in the way people interact at the camp.

East meets West

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 23:24:20 -0500

Okay, there will be an article from the newsletter, tomorrow, in Yiddish and more general, but here are my notes from this astounding concert. The way it worked was that Michael Alpert, mostly, and Adrienne Cooper, some, provided some introductions. And at first the musicians introduced themselves and talked about how they came to the music and how much they love it. And then the Russians and Ukrainians got impatient with all of the talk and started preceding their individual segments with "I won't go into how I got into this music. Here is a song...."

In velt iz alts git (a new song by Yevgeniya Lopatnik)

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 23:26:32 -0500

The following song was the finale at last night's "East Meets West" concert. It was written by Yevgeniya Lopatnik, and the song sheet was distributed to the audience.

In velt iz alts git!

text & music: Yevgeniya Lopatnik (Kharkov, Ukraine)

קלעזקאַנאַדע װערט גרעסער

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 23:32:03 -0500

from Wednesday's newsletter

מיזרח טרעפֿט זיך מיט מעריבֿ—אַזױ האָט מען אָנגערופֿן די נײַע פּראָגראַם אין קלעזקאַנאַדע, װאָס האָט געבראַכט 12 יונגע, שײנע, און שעפֿערישע מוזיקאַנטן און זינגערס פֿון פֿאַרשידענע לענדער פֿונעם געװעזענעם ראַטן–פֿאַרבאַנד און געגעבן זײ די מעגלעכקײט צו אַנטפּלעקן פֿאַרן מערבֿדיקן עולם אַן אוצר פֿון טאַלאַנטן פֿון מזרח. במשך פֿון צװײ שעה האָט מען געזען און געהערט, צום גרעסטן טײל, נײַע לידער און ניגונים װאָס די טאַלאַנטירטע כּלי–זמרים האָבן אַלײן געשאַפֿן און פּרעכטיק געשפּילט און געזונגען אױף דער בינע פֿון קלעזקאַנאַדע.

דער פֿאָרזיצער פֿון סײנט פּעטערבורגער ייִדישן צענטער, אַליק פֿרענקעל האָט באַמערקט אין זײן װענדונג צו קלעזקאַנאַדע עולם אַז אין דער נױענטסטער צוקונפֿט װעלן די באַגריפֿן “מזרח” און מעריבֿ” פֿאַרשװוּנדן און נאָר אײן באַגריף—ייִדישע קולטור און קלעזמער מוזיק װעלן בלײַבן און פֿאַרײניקן אונדז אַלעמען. פֿון זײַן מױל אין גאָטס אױער.

Coming Events (from the newsletter)

Wed, 07 Sep 2005 13:28:01 -0500

קלעזקאַנאַדע װערט גרעסער

Coming Up!

טאַנץ–קלאַס

Wed, 07 Sep 2005 13:43:07 -0500

ג’עסיקע בלום

הײַנט בין איך געװען אין אַ טאַנץ–קלאַס פֿון זאבֿ פֿעלדמאַן און סטיװ װײַנטרױב.

"Gitl Purishkevitsh"—Stories of Draft Resistance from many times and places, part 2

Wed, 07 Sep 2005 13:47:06 -0500

A new piece of musical theatre based on a monologue by Sholem Aleichem, and created by Jenny Levison and Josh Waletzky is coming to life. Since the piece is about a mother getting her son out of the tzar's army, Jenny and Josh have been gathering oral histories of other draft resistors. Yesterday we printed one story. Here are more.

Dr. Sheldon Hershkop

Wed, 07 Sep 2005 13:59:40 -0500

KlezKanada participant Dr. Sheldon Hershkop, drawn by his son, Netanel Hershkop

Klezmer Coast to Coast

Wed, 07 Sep 2005 14:02:12 -0500

by Keith and Renah Wolzinger

KlezKanada is a great place to make life long friends who have a lot in common—especially musically. That is the case with Renah Wolzinger and Stuart Warshauer. Renah and Stu met several years ago, hanging out at the airport in Montreal, waiting for the camp bus. They played together many times at the Klez Cabaret, and became great friends.

One evening at dinner, Stuart mentioned that he wished he could make a recording of his violin. Luckily, Renah owns RenZone Studios in Southern California, a Digital Recording Studio, and teaches Recording Engineering at Golden West College. She suggested that Stuart fly out to California and record in her studio.

Stu mailed tunes from Florida, and Renah assembled the band—members of the South Coast Simcha Band, which she directs. When Stu arrived in California, it was a mini KlezKanada reunion. We rehearsed the next day, and started recording in the evening. Stuart and Renah collaborated on the arrangements, and a CD project was born—Klezmer Coast to Coast, featuring Stuart on violin, and Renah on clarinet.

It was a wonderful project, which has turned into a great CD of tunes enjoyed by audiences of all ages. It was a great experience and we look forward to sharing our music with everyone as we prepare for our next joint project.

Escape from Camp Bnai Brith

Wed, 07 Sep 2005 14:54:15 -0500

I woke up bright and early and was ready to roll by 6:30 or so (well, maybe 6:45) for the dash down to Montreal airport to pick up my wife. As I drove to the gate, it occurred to me that staff did not show up until 7am. And, indeed, I sat in the car listening to CBC until about 7, when the office person arrived and I was able to scoot through the gate. It didn't really matter. I was a bit late to pick her up, but we made good time and were back to pick up a late breakfast. It was so nice to have Judy in camp with me. She got a few minutes on her laptop (the computer I am using to produce the newsletter) to work on her lecture for the following day, and then she went off to tsimbl class and I sat down to jam out the 2nd newsletter. With all the Hebrew and despite last night's work, I was still a bit later to the office, and the newsletter arrived only at the end of lunch. By now I was getting lots of requests for yesterday's newsletter as well, so I resolved that the Thursday newsletter would print 120 copies instead of our modest 100.

Here is the Wednesday newsletter, in PDF format.

At some point during the day, I ran into Jenny Levison. "The newsletter needs personal ads," she suggested. It seemed perfectly obvious. We could see ourselves facilitating the natural matchmaking that was happening around us. A fundraiser was born! So, as we handed out the newsletters at lunch, after Joanne Borts announced her "loyf tsunoyf" run on Friday morning (a fundraiser for the camp scholarship fund) I decided that I was not to be outdone. I declared that henceforth, personal ads would be available in the newsletter, for a $5 contribution to the KlezKanada Scholarship fund. I already have the first ads. I can't wait to see how many I get by deadline (breakfast tomorrow).