Happy New Year!
Last December, I celebrated two years living in New York and - in spite of the terrible context in this country - on a personal level they have been amazingly rich and beautiful! I'm so grateful to all the people and communities that I have encountered and been part of, to all the new friends I made, and to all the old friends who (bear with me and) keep surrounding me with support and love!
The New York Klezmer Series has continued to be a host for many of us in the klezmer world, including my new duo "Lyubtshe" with Lauren Brody and we are performing again at Barbes - another musical home of mine and many on 1/23, and the very fun klezmer violin orchestra "New York Fidl Kapelye" - thanks to the restless efforts of Aaron Alexander who has been creating this meeting point for more than 15 years now! And the Jalopy Theater - another dear community - has offered a warm shelter to the Klezmer Series.
Working in the Sound Archive of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research with Lorin Sklamberg, Lyudmila Sholokhova, and other great colleagues, has been another highlight of my New York experience. Steeped in Yiddish music, I have, among other things, had the privilege to coordinate the soon-to-come website dedicated to the folklorist Ruth Rubin's Legacy.
I was very happy to present this project during the wonderful week of Yiddish New York (please, if you don't know about it yet - check it out and put it in your calendar for next year! It's incredible!), organized by my dear friend - and music partner in the Klezmographers - Pete Rushefsky, and by the Center for Traditional Music and Dance which has been another great support for me this year.
Thanks to them, I was able to study all year long traditional Yiddish folksongs with the folksinger, songwriter, and filmmaker Joshua Waletzky (who just released a beautiful album of his new Yiddish songs "Passengers!"), as part of an apprenticeship in Folk Arts from the NYSCA.
Touring in Europe with my Paris-band Yerushe was another great, great moment of the year! Stay tuned for more with Yerushe in the coming year, starting with a concert on March 13th at the Café de Paris (in Paris !).
I also performed at YIVO with clarinetist Michael Winograd and accordionist Peter Stan (what a treat!) for a very exciting "Summer Yiddish Song Celebration" curated by Alex Weiser, that marked the end of the prestigious Uriel Weinreich Yiddish Summer Program. Another fun performance at YIVO was for the "Children's Day", with multi-instrumentalist Zoe Christiansen.
Performing Jewish songs for children was one of the pleasures of this winter, with Madeline Solomon, Eleonore Weill and Zoe Christiansen, at different branches of the Brooklyn Public Library.
I also coordinated the children's program (and will be teaching more this year) for the Workmen's Circle during the amazing week "Trip to Yiddishland." I also taught Yiddish, Yiddish songs and klezmer music during a week in Ligoure (France) for the Maison de la Culture Yiddish.
This past year, I shared a nest in Brooklyn with wonderful musicians who are part of the Brooklyn Raga Massive, a collective of Indian classical music. They somehow adopted me and opened up their musical world to me. I got the honor to perform with Anjna Swaminatham's project "Woven," and to jam with amazing improvisers at their weekly series (check it out too!). The collective produces beautiful and impressive events all year long.
A few more things:
An article I wrote about a Yiddish theater journal from the post-war years in France "Miroirs des mémoires : Der Teater Shpigl, une revue théâtrale yiddish parisienne de l'après-guerre" came out in a beautiful book edited by Judith Lindenberg, Premiers savoirs de la Shoah (CNRS Editions, Paris, 2017). It is very humbling to be surrounded by such impressive scholars in this publication.
I hosted a few radio shows named "Zing!" about Yiddish songs, for the web radio "Yiddish Pour Tous". You can listen to them here. The radio has also aired recordings of my grandfather Moishe Rozenbaumas reading his memoirs in an authentic Litvak Yiddish (with French translations). His memoirs were published in French in 2004, and will hopefully be published in their English translation as well.
I was also featured in a beautiful movie about Yiddish by David Waldman entitled "Dibboukim", that you can watch here.
It is hard to cite everyone who made this year so rich, and I'm probably forgetting some things, but I guess that this is long enough! :)
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This has been such an amazing learning experience, and hopefully this will only grow in deepened collaborations, new ones, and... more learning! Stay tuned for new projects coming up too!
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AND... Coming up in January!
I'm really excited to be playing this weekend at Golden Festival aka the party of the year, with an amazing lineup of musicians - Michael Winograd and the Honorable Mentshn - for a crazy klezmer dance set at 12:50 am on Saturday night in the Ballroom of the Grand Prospect Hall ! Seriously, don't miss this! Check out the schedule. You can also volunteer (see the festival's website or their facebook page)
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AND... LYUBTSHE Yiddish Folksongs of Women
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will play again at Barbes on Tuesday, January 23rd at 7pm
376 9th St. (corner of 6th Ave.) Park Slope, Brooklyn
$10 suggested
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I hope to see you soon and I wish you a happy new year!
Joy, light, music and dance, love!
Eleonore
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