The title of this year’s Yiddish Summer Weimar, Bobe Mayses, looks back more than 500 years to Elia Levitas’ Bovo Bukh (1507). The first printed work of secular Yiddish literature, this re-telling of the Middle Age romance of the Knight Bevis is a surprising, splendid example of the centuries-old connections between Yiddish and other European cultures. So it is only fitting to open this year’s festival with a music project that explores just this rich cultural matrix.

Voices of Ashkenaz reinterprets a shared tradition of Yiddish and German folksongs. The brain-child of director Andreas Schmitges, Voices of Ashkenaz brings together his own original research with the experience and artistry of world-class musicians. The result is a fresh, contemporary music that blends the best of the Yiddish and German folk music revivals.

Voices of Ashkenaz features singer and multi-instrumentalist Michael Alpert, an international luminary of Yiddish music for more than 40 years whose many achievements as an artist, edu-cator and cultural activist were honored in 2015 with a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow-ship, the highest award for traditional artists in the USA. Joining Alpert in Voices of Ashkenaz are rising-star singer Sveta Kundish, pioneering klezmer violinist Deborah Strauss, master of North German folk violin Vivien Zeller, hurdy-gurdy wizard Till Uhlmann, bassist/guitarist Thomas Fritze (renowned through A Tickle in The Heart), Yiddish Summer director Alan Bern and band leader, guitarist and mandolinist Andreas Schmitges.

We are delighted to present Voices of Ashkenaz as the opening concerts of Yiddish Summer Weimar 2016!

“A global cooperation that bears gorgeous fruit.” (Fürther Nachrichten)
“The Voices of Ashkenaz will change everything you thought you knew about Yiddish and German folksongs!” (Alan Bern, Director, Yiddish Summer Weimar)

Line up:
Michael Alpert (USA) – voice, violin, frame drum
Alan Bern (D/USA) – accordion
Thomas Fritze (D) – bass, guitar, voice
Sveta Kundisch (IL/D) – voice
Andreas Schmitges (D) – guitar, mandolin, voice
Deborah Strauss (USA) – violin, voice
Till Uhlmann (D) – hurdy-gurdy
Vivien Zeller (D) – violin

www.ashkenaz.eu back

Karsten Troyke says about this song program: A CD in Yiddish, a CD in German. These are all songs that I’ve wanted to publish for a long time. Finally, beginning last year and ending this year, I was able to do it. Since 1988 I’ve been performing most of these songs with Götz Lindenberg. Daniel Weltlinger's violin added the “missing link” – only now did I realize how they should have sounded all along. Although we grew up so far apart - in Sydney and Berlin - we play and sing as though we’d grown up together! It’s the old European culture that unites us: the longing and loss felt in Jewish families who had escaped to Australia joins with shock and loss in my own family in Berlin. World War II is still present, the Shoah determines our thinking... no! Our feeling!
We both look for lost treasures and new thoughts. We found them in old Yiddish folk songs, in many songs written by Georg Kreisler, in the beautiful Hebrew songs from Israel's pioneer days and in the simple love songs in both languages.
 
Line up:
Karsten Troyke (D) – vocals, guitar
Daniel Weltlinger (AUS/D) – violin

www.karstentroyke.de
www.danielweltlinger.com back

The final concert of the Yiddish Song Workshop is always a very special occasion. This year, we dove into the tales and legends of the Yiddish world and beyond. After spending a week discovering ballads and stories, old and new, and creating new songs and legends about people's loves, lives and struggles, about humanity's dilemmas and controversies, the moment comes to share all of this intensive work with the public. The workshop participants are led and joined by their teachers, all of whom are internationally renowned artists: Daniel Kahn, Psoy Korolenko, Michael Alpert and Sasha Lurje, together with other Yiddish Summer Weimar artists, in a concert that explores the amazing depth and breadth of traditional and contemporary Yiddish songs. back

WAKS – Yiddish Voices - Inge Mandos, Klemens Kaatz, Hans-Christian Jaenicke
– Nominated for the The German Record Critics' Award 2016 –

The focus of this CD are the Yiddish voices that were recorded on wax cylinders and stored in archives for decades. The sensitive and responsive arrangements of the WAKS ensemble are built around the original voices, an idea which hadn’t been used in the Yiddish genre until now. The result is a recording that allows an almost intimate closeness to people who lived and sang some 80 years ago. Twelve Yiddish singers from Eastern Europe are soloists together with Inge Mandos. They are put into a new context and the result is a subtle fusion of old voices with today’s music, thus bringing them back to life.  
The WAKS ensemble dove into traditional Yiddish with a great respect and expertise that is rare today. It performs a unique program with very special instrumental sounds that take their direction from the fragile, sometimes rustling or crackling original material.  
 
Inge Mandos (D) – voice
Klemens Kaatz (D) – piano, accordion, Indian harmonium
Hans-Christian Jaenicke (D) – violin

www.ingemandos.de

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Anna Shternshis & Psoy Korolenko
Last Yiddish Heroes: Lost and Found Songs of Soviet Jews during World War II

Singer-songwriter Psoy Korolenko and historian Anna Shternshis (University of Toronto) bring to life “lost” Yiddish songs of the World War II in this all-new concert and lecture program. Collected by Moshe Beregovsky and other scientists of the Kiev Cabinet for Jewish Culture, these previously unknown Yiddish songs were confiscated and hidden by the Soviet government in 1949, and have only recently come to light. The lecture/concert features the performance and incredible stories behind these treasures.

Anna Shternshis (RUS/CDN) – lecture, voice
Psoy Korolenko (RUS) – piano, voice back

YHIP is short for “Yiddish Historically Informed Performance”, the topic of the conference taking place this year as part of Yiddish Summer Weimar.

Essentially, YHIP stands for a process that almost all musicians and dancers have gone through if they’ve been part of the revival of Yiddish music since the 1970s: historical sources - whether people, manuscripts, field recordings or 78 rpm records - serve as inspirations and models for contemporary music making and are used to create new Yiddish culture.
In this YHIP lecture-concert, world-renowned artists and scholars will discuss and demonstrate how this works. They will share their own, individual approaches to historical sources and how these lead to different contemporary interpretations. The evening promises to be both fascinating and full of surprising insights.

Alan Bern (USA/D) – accordion, piano
Joshua Horowitz (USA) – accordion
Diana Matut (D) – voice
Jascha Nemtsov (RUS/D) – piano
Joel Rubin (USA) – clarinet
Cookie Segelstein (USA) – violin
Deborah Strauss (USA) – violin
Jeff Warschauer (USA) – guitar, voice
and others back

Every year, Yiddish Summer invites internationally leading artists in Yiddish music to come teach and perform in Weimar. In a high-level concert starting off the instrumental workshop, the teachers offer a closer look at their own current work. We will hear featured artists Veretski Pass & Joel Rubin’s new project “Poyln”, as well as music especially created for this concert. A unique, lively and artistically outstanding musical experience!

With Stuart Brotman, Christian Dawid, Joshua Horowitz, Sasha Lurje, Joel Rubin, Cookie Segelstein, Amit Weisberger & Alan Bern back

In 2016, the Yiddish Summer Weimar community lost two of its most cherished friends and colleagues, Franka Lampe and Dorothea Greve.

Franka was one of the most distinguished accordion players of the German klezmer and Balkan music scene. She was generous in sharing what she knew, and she was a skillful teacher, who passed on her knowledge to innumerable workshop participants. Franka was closely associated with Yiddish Summer for many years, both as a teacher and as a member of the supervisory board. The whole Yiddish Summer team mourns her passing. We have lost a great colleague and a wonderful person. Her playing captivated her fellow musicians and her audiences alike. Franka Lampe was the heart of klezmer music in Germany, and her influence was felt around the world.

Dorothea Greve was a woman of incredible energy, and spirit. Her feeling for and dedication to Yiddish language and culture was at the core of her life. She was an absolutely brilliant teacher, and she introduced Yiddish language and culture to countless people. She was also a wonderful musician who inspired her colleagues everywhere with her skill, knowledge, humor and love. She was a cherished and beloved colleague and friend, teaching Yiddish in Yiddish Summer Weimar since 2004.

This evening we celebrate the lives and works of Franka and Dorothea in a personal way, and we hope you will join us. back

Venturing beyond the known Horas, Freylekhs, Bulgars and Shers of Moldova, Ukraine and Russia, Veretski Pass and their guest, Joel Rubin, mine the Obereks, Kujawiaks, Krakowiaks and Polkas of Poland, the land that was once home to three million Jews. Inspired by the 1901 story, ‘A Gilgul Fun a Nign’ (Metamorphosis of a Melody), written by Polish Jewish author I.L. Peretz, the repertoire draws from previously unknown Hassidic tunes, country dances, contemporary and 19th century ethnographic collections as well as from field research of the musicians and their colleagues. Drawing on these sources, Veretski Pass and Joel Rubin have re-imagined, re-composed and re-arranged old urban and rural music to enrich the genre currently known as klezmer music. This recording is the meeting of Jewish and Polish music – a missing link of the klezmer revival.

Line up:
Cookie Segelstein (USA) – violin
Joel Rubin (USA) – c-clarinet
Josh Horowitz (USA) – accordion, tsimbl
Stuart Brotman (USA) – zakopany cello

www.poyln.com back

Master oud player, violinist and vocalist Yair Dalal is one of a handful of artists who preserve and sustain the Babylonian musical heritage. The south of Mesopotamia, today’s Iraq and the surrounding region, is the cradle of humankind’s earliest civilizations as well as the birthplace of Abraham, the prophet of the three monotheistic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This is where Jews made a home during their exile from the land of Israel for more than 2500 years. Their presence in Babylon dates from 720 BC to 1950, when the Iraqi government allowed the Jewish people to legally immigrate to Israel.
The concert is inspired by the Jewish musical tradition of the Babylonian heritage in which Yair Dalal was raised, the music of Baghdad and the atmosphere of the desert.
The repertoire includes Iraqi-Jewish sacred music and chants from Baghdad and Jerusalem, Jewish Arabic songs from Iraq, some in Aramaic, as well as instrumental pieces of the Jewish musical tradition of Baghdad.

Line up:
Yair Dalal (IL) – violin, oud, vocal
Elad Reuven Gabbay (IL) – qanûn, vocal
Yagel Haroush (IL) – flute, vocal
Avi Agababa (IL) – percussion

www.yairdalal.com
https://youtu.be/952Tw-DIPbU
back

The Jewish liturgical year is marked by moments that celebrate joy, folly and lamentation. Three holidays express these emotions perfectly: Passover, when families across the globe reunite to celebrate the liberation of the slaves in Egypt; Purim, where digression reigns; and Tisha Ba’av, a day of mourning, but one where moments of great sadness are mixed with glimmerings of joy.
These emotions have also left their mark on the music of the Jewish people: for example, thirteenth-century minnesinger Süßkind von Trimberg’s lamentations on his poverty and low social standing; the joyous dances of Guglielmo Hebreo da Pesaro; or echoes of the 16th century dance known as “La Follia” that can be found in a Sabbath morning prayer.  
The celebrations for Passover and Purim are centered around merry-making and song: Chad Gadya (the Song of the Kid), and the countless purimshpiln performed in all of the languages of the Jewish diaspora, while on Tisha Ba’av, the 137th psalm, Al Naharot Bavel (By the Rivers of Babylon), which deplores the Babylonian exile, is an integral part of the service.  
With songs in Hebrew, German, Yiddish and Italian, drawn from sources from the Middle Ages to the 20th century oral tradition, Lucidarium celebrates the moments of joy, folly and lamentation that have marked Jewish life from the Middle Ages to today.

Ensemble Lucidarium:
Enrico Fink (I): voice
Avery Gosfield (USA/I) and Marco Ferrari (I): recorder, pipe and tabor, double flute, bagpipe
Francis Biggi (I): plucked strings
Massimiliano Dragoni (I): hammer dulcimer, percussion

www.lucidarium.com back

Sixteenth century Venice was a multicultural, vibrant and chaotic universe. Jews from across Italy, the rest of Europe and the Levant gathered in the three ghetti (one for the German Jews, one for the Italians, and a third for the Spaniards) where a myriad of different languages (and different musical traditions) could be heard. Even if restricted to overcrowded, oppressive quarters, unable to practice most professions, and subject to random arrest or forced conversion, the Jews of Venice left behind a creative output that is still impressive today. One of its most illustrious inhabitants was Elias Bachur Levita, also known as Elye Bokher or Elijah Ben Asher Halevi Ashkenazi. In addition to an impressive quantity of Hebrew, Yiddish and Latin dictionaries, psalm translations and Bible commentaries, he also found time to write poetry: in Yiddish, but clearly influenced in both form and content by the Italian models around him. For example, the “Bovo Bukh,” an adaptation of one of the best-known epic poems of the 16th century: written in that most Italian of poetic forms, the ottava rima. Many of his songs talk of friends, foes and events in his beloved adoptive city: like the “Sreyfe Lid”, a rollicking Yiddish language account of a fire that swept through the Rialto, or the “Hamavdil Lid”, that uses a semi-liturgical melody sung to bid farewell to the Sabbath to set a a vituperative, risqué text aimed against one of his arch-rivals.

Almost all of the pieces in this program have been reconstructed or transcribed by Ensemble Lucidarium and many will be performed for the first time since the 16th century.

Ensemble Lucidarium:
Enrico Fink (I): voice and narration
Gloria Moretti, Anna Pia Capurso (I): voice
Avery Gosfield (USA/I) and Marco Ferrari (I): Renaissance wind instruments
Francis Biggi (I): plucked strings
Élodie Poirier (F/I): nyckelharpa, violoncello
Massimiliano Dragoni (I): hammer dulcimer, percussion
 
www.lucidarium.com back

Israeli master oud player, violinist and vocalist Yair Dalal is one of a 
handful of artists who preserve and sustain the Babylonian musical 
heritage. He was raised in the music of Baghdad and the atmosphere of 
the desert.
In addition to his concert with his ensemble on August 3, 
"Baghdad-Jerusalem – Sacred Music from Old Baghdad," Yair presents this special solo concert. For everyone who appreciate sublime music, and for those who are interested in the encounter of Jewish and Arabic music, 
this concert is a rare opportunity to experience a true pioneer of 
Arabic music in Israel up close and personal. back

The Brothers Nazaroff is a supergroup of 21st-century Yiddish simcha madness, founded on a mutual love of an obscure troubadour: Nathan "Prince" Nazaroff. In his 1954 Folkways album, Jewish Freilach Songs, one hears the alleys of Odessa, the boardwalks of Coney Island and the mountain air of the Catskills. In rescuing the repertoire of this lost master tumler, this all-star klezmer band tears down borders with a musical balagan.
Their new album, The Happy Prince, released by the venerable Smithsonian Folkways label, is a joyous tribute to Nazaroff. In 2016 filmmaker Csaba Bereczky is releasing Soul Exodus, a film featuring The Brothers performing all over America and Europe, celebrating the discordant, jubilant, ecstatic legacy of their Happy Prince.

Line up:
Daniel “Danik Nazaroff” Kahn (USA/D) – vocals, accordion, bird whistle
Psoy “Pasha Nazaroff” Korolenko (RUS) – vocals, tumler
Michael “Mishke Nazaroff” Alpert (USA) – vocals, guitar
Bob “Zaelic Nazaroff” Cohen (USA/HU) – vocals, mandolin, fiddle
Jake “Yankl Nazaroff” Shulman-Ment (USA) – vocals, violin
Hampus “Hempl Nazaroff” Melin (S/D) – poyk

www.princenazaroff.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MschzQkASmk back