“What does YHIP mean exactly?”

"It means researching the sources for the music we play today. We want to create a living, ongoing dialogue between artists who perform Yiddish music and dance today and scholars who study the history of those arts."


"Why?"

"Because we believe that both sides have many insights to share with each other, gained from years of performing or studying, and if they do, it will be both artistically and scientifically enriching."


"That sounds like something only for experts..."

"Not at all! The questions we'll discuss should be fascinating to anyone interested in Yiddish music or dance, history, or any kind of cultural studies. Workshop participants as well as visitors to the festival are very welcome."

The conference schedule will be posted soon. We hope to see you there! back

Call for Papers
Conference on Yiddish Music - Historically Informed Performance (YHIP)!
Weimar (Germany), July 19-22, 2016

“Performers who lay any claim to historical practice should give full attention to new research findings, whether or not they choose to use them. […] While questions of performance practice should be the musician’s daily housekeeping alongside technical preparation, fundamental questions concerning the future of our research and performance must not be ignored. […].”
(Trevor Pinnock: “Reflections of a ‘Pioneer’,” in Early Music XVI/1 (2013): 21)

Trevor Pinnock, indeed a pioneer of the Early Music revival, wrote these sentences in 2013. By then, centuries had passed since the rediscovery of Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music and the unprecedented development of a professional scene that included both scholars and performers.
Yiddish musical cultures have been revived enthusiastically, too, since the 1970s in the US and Europe – with the fundamental difference that musicology was, with a few exceptions, neither prepared nor eager to engage with the emerging performance practice. Thus, performers turned by necessity into  practical ethnomusicologists – studying recordings and collections, conducting field-work and passing on their knowledge to students and colleagues by way of traditional teaching methods.

Now, 40 years later and in an (arguably) post-revival stage, we might ask, echoing Pinnock: do present-day Klezmorim or Yiddish singers consider questions of performance practice their “daily housekeeping?” Or go further and ask: is it even possible for them to do so?
Therefore, this conference invites scholars and musicians alike to hand in abstracts for lectures related to the following subjects:

•    Sources and resources: collections, accessibility of material and its edition; structures of support
•    What has/is being revived: style, style-period, geography etc. and the taste-criteria
•    Analysis of repertoire: instrumental music, song and dance
•    Analysis of performance practices: ornamentation, micro-improvisation and stylistic features in instrumental music, song and dance
•    Analysis of vocal and instrumental techniques
•    Suggestions for the standardization of musical notation concerning Yiddish ornamentation practice
•    Relationship between Yiddish and different contemporary musical practices and repertoires (e.g. theatre, folk, popular, Chassidic, (para-) liturgical, jazz, urban & rural, gender-specific etc.)
•    Analysis of musical continuity between Ashkenaz I and II
•    Institutionalization and education: critical reflections

Attention shall be paid to Yiddish music between its inception in the Middle Ages and its expressions in 21st-century Europe, the Americas and elsewhere.
Following the conference, a handbook on Yiddish Music – Historically Informed Performance Practice (working title) will be published.
All participants are obliged to agree to a publication of their contributions. We offer various possibilities and formats: a) an essay, b) a transcript of the presentation. All presentations will be recorded.

Stipends: For the time of the conference, hotel and catering will be provided. We offer assistance for travel costs as well as a small honorarium for those who cannot acquire aid via an institution. Please contact us about this individually after your paper has been accepted.

Please send your abstracts of max. 200 words until the 1st of March 2016 to: Diana Matut (diana.matut@judaistik.uni-halle.de).

Live performances as examples are welcome!

The conference will also include an exciting program of evening performances and other events.

We hope to see you in Weimar!
Diana Matut, Andreas Schmitges, Alan Bern

For questions and more information please refer to www.yiddishsummer.eu or conference organizers Diana Matut (diana.matut@judaistik.uni-halle.de) and Andreas Schmitges: (schmitges@aol.com) back