And the Yemenite music, the enchanting sound that is the mix of so many scents, with Suliman the Great and his family, will accompany us in the path to Shabbat.
How are you? Today there is not a festivity (or… not yet!). I hope all this special time has been fruitful, inspiring, full of reflection and growth for you.
Today I bring you the result of my wanderings in Youtube. Our protagonist is an artist that is not characterized by humility. Well, it is not true: he was not the one who proclaimed himself as “the great”. But it wouldn’t have mattered: how would it matter when you are an amazing artist and the patriarch of a saga of artists, one of which would be the first winner of your country of the Eurovision Song Contest?
I wouldn’t have been able to make this edition without the support of Igal Gulaza Mizrahi ?, the leader of the band Gulaza . I got this picture from his Facebook. It was done by Leat Sabbah. There is no info about this Suliman in English at the Internet and Igal gave me some relevant tips that allowed me to start the search in Hebrew websites.
Learn more below and, as usual, find the music piece at the bottom.
One last thing before we get into the flour: if you like this, share it.
That’s all I ask you. Thank you in advance.
? This wonderful picture is from the page of the magazine GivatayimPlus, where you can find some more. Givatayim was the city where the family settled.
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To make this portrait I have used several sources:
– the mentioned page of GivatayimPlus,
– his profile in Geni.com
– the newspaper Mako
– the newspaper XNet
– the brief explanation that helped me to start the search, by Igal Gulaza Mizrahi, who told me:
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“Suliman the Great was the son of parents who immigrated from Yemen. He was popular in our country in the past because he sang songs of the Land of Israel, songs of shepherds, and songs of Bedouin (which the immigrants from Russia loved so much). So they called these songs : “songs around the fire.” He also sings Yemeni. All his children were singers. The most famous is Yizhar Cohen (the first Israeli to win the Eurovision Song Contest in first place, in 1978).”
The song that won Eurovision was A-Ba-Ni-Bi. I don’t know if you know it, but in Spain it was suuuuuuper famous and everybody still knows it and there are many artists that have sang it with Spanish lyrics. This was the original performance at the contest.
Igal sent me the link to the Wikipedia in Hebrew too, where I learnt the real name of Soliman was Shlomo (that, by the way, are the same name) and the surname was Cohen.
So, Shlomo Cohen, or Suliman the Great, was born in 1921 in Tel Aviv, Israel. He married Sara Cohen. She was born in Yemen, near Sanaa, and her parents moved to Israel when she was 6 months old. The way would take months. It was done part by foot, and part in a British postal boat. After the arrival, the family faced many difficulties too. Note they entered the land when Israel as a state was not existing yet. There was a period of much uncertainty and violence. The father died when Sara was 10 years old. Her mother had to work from sunrise to night. She explains her life quite deeply in this interview. Sara and Shlomo met at very young age and they got married when she was 16 years old.
How did they become artists?
It was not premeditated. During his attendance at the army (note this was still during the Mandatory Palestina, with the land administrated by the British) the men used to gather around a fire, telling tales and singing songs. Shlomo soon stood out as a singer. He was given the nickname of Suliman the Great by one of this colleagues. The guys proposed him to request money for the performances. So it started with little expectations. And they were requested soon for many and many more places to perform.
Sara was a singer with Suliman, and a great one too! And they had four kids, who became singers and they all entered the band: the boys, Hofni, Pinchas and Izhar Cohen, and the girl, Vardina Cohen. They settled in Givatayim. Not everything was easy in their lifes. Sometimes they didn’t have enough to buy the essential furniture, but an accordion, a guitar and the personal music lessons from the father were never missing.
They recorded two albums: “30 years singing around the fire with Suliman the Great”, with 25 pieces, in 1978, and Singer of the Land with Suliman the Great” in 1994. Don’t miss to see Shlomo and Sara in this live performance at the TV. The picture above is from that performance.
Shlomo died in 2009 because of a kidney disease. It is said that he was singing even in the way to the hospital. About Sara, she was alive at least until August 2019, when the interview at XNet was done. I haven’t found any information about after. All the information about them is in Hebrew. I would thank any data. Blessed machine translators, by the way…
Who was the previous Suliman the Great?
According to Thoughtco, Suleiman the Great, or Suleiman the First:
“(November 6, 1494–September 6, 1566) became the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire in 1520, heralding the “Golden Age” of the Empire’s long history before his death. Perhaps best known for his overhaul of the Ottoman government during his reign, Suleiman was known by many names, including “The LawGiver.”
His rich character and even richer contribution to the region and the Empire helped make it a source of great wealth in prosperity for years to come, ultimately leading to the foundation of several nations in Europe and the Middle East we know today.”
You can learn much more about his life and achievements, here. It is very interesting. Note there is a direct relation between Suliman’s reign and Yemen: in 1538 took Aden from the Portuguese and set a base to continue the attacks against the Portuguese, who were trying to control parts of India. This was the beginning of a period of conflicts between the Ottoman and the Portuguese.
Medley of Yemenite songs, by Suliman the Great and family
Igal Gulaza explained me which are the songs in this wonderful medley and recommended me to check this website of the National Library of Israel to learn more about the pieces. So I will make a little summary about each of the pieces.
The singer opens with “Dror Yikra” (with Yemenite melody). This is one of the best known and most common Shabbat songs in all Israeli communities over the generations. This is probably the first song written especially as a song for Shabbat, and not as a piyyut intended to be included in prayer or in the synagogue. The song itself is about today’s Sabbath as freedom and spiritual redemption for humans and the world. The author of the piyyut is Dunash ibn Labrat, a 10th century poet and linguist from Spain (note Spain was not a estate or country yet), a student of R. Saadia Gaon who moved to Spain where he worked.
After that, they move on to Moroccan piyyut “Shalom Leben Dodi“. This is a piyyut written by Shlomo Ibn Gabirol, one of the greatest poets of Spain in XI century. There is a dialogue between the people of Israel and God, represented as, on many occasions in the piyyutim, by two lovers.
In third place, they sing a Yemenite piyyut, “Im Nin’Alu” (Yemeni melody). A central song for celebrations in the tradition of Yemeni Jews. It is composed by seven stanzas, alternating Hebrew and Arabic. It was written by seventeenth-century Rabbi Shalomon Shabazi. It is very popular specially thanks to the versions by Ofra Haza. I have found some other renditions of this song and I will come back with it in a near future.
And returns to finish again with “Shalom Leben Dodi“.
October 9th, 2020. Shabbat (and Simchat Torah) is almost here
Put on your dancing shoes and get ready for Belf’s Romanian Orchestra and travel back in time more than one century
Hello! How are you? You see, there are many recordings of pieces of Simchat Torah but in Music Before Shabbat there are no concessions! The older the better. I have to confess that the first time I listened to any Simchat Torah piece it was by the Klezmatics and I had no idea about what those words meant.
And another confession: at the bottom ? you’ll find not only one, but two videos, and the second is a concession… Check it, it is lovely too and it will introduce you in the mood of dancing.
Just one more thing: to ask you to share this is because the only thing I got from these weekly email, apart of an immense pleasure and much learning, is the joy of more people enjoying it. Thank you in advance.
I know some of the subscribers may not know all the Jewish celebrations. Simchat Torah means the joy the with the Torah and the ritual consist on getting the Torah rolls out of the ark and dancing with it. Why? Because the reading of the Torah is going to be completed. A new cycle of reading will start.
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Dancing with the Torah?¿?¿? ?
Yes, literally. You can see it here, for instance. And here, you can see it too and women dance too, of course!
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? The picture is Jew with Torah, by Marc Chagall, from 1925. I found it very appropiate for this occasion.
Who were those “Belf’s Romanian Orchestra”?
I was expecting to find the bio of Mr. Belf… Hehe, no way. At the website of the Audio Portal of Community Radios, accredited to the “Radaktion Jiddische Kultur – Dr. Juliane Lensch und Clemens Riesser, Radio RUM-90,1”, I found this:
“Belf’s Romanian Orchestra – Rumynski Orkestr Belfa, an early document of historical recordings of klezmer kapelies from Eastern Europe. Not much is known about this band. Neither the line-up nor where the klezmorim performed. Not even the first name of the leader of the “Belf’s Romanian Orchestra” V. Belf is known. But it is certain that these are very early recordings from Eastern Europe. These recordings were made between 1908 and 1914, i.e. before the First World War, and are probably the first recordings that are still known to us today.”
Despite that, there are a lot of recordings by this orchestra and it is very influential on the current klezmer artists. According to Kurt Bjorling on Musiker.org:
“The ‘Belf’s Romanian Orchestra’ is a quartet consisting of clarinet, two violins, and piano. They recorded at least 60 pieces for the Syrena record company from 1912-14. Syrena was a Russian-owned record company operating in Warsaw before the First World War. These records are rare today, but they were highly influential, in both America and Europe, at the time they were made and distributed. These same recordings have also been highly influential in the ‘klezmer revival’ of today. The Belf Orchestra recorded at least 28 pieces for two other record companies, Amur and Extraphon, but none of these are yet known to exist in any collection.”
Do you want to learn more about Sirena record company? Check this page at Belfology.
In The Fiddle Handbook, by Chris Haigh, he say:“Belf was actually from the Ukraine; the use of the word Romanian was probably more of a marketing ploy than anything else. […] These recordings offer one of the chief surviving insights into the repertoire and style of Old World klezmorim.”The author refers to the work by Jeffrey Wollock: “European Recordings of Jewish Instrumental Folk Music, 1911-14” in the ARSC Journal, volume XXVIII / i 1997. (Association for Recorded Sound Collections)
Do you want to listen to more pieces by the Belf’s Romanian Orchestra? Check this page at the Internet Archive.
“Romanian apparently signaled “Jewish” in the record market at the time, and also the more elaborate, developed music of the klezmer “south.” Many of the 42 Belf sides are of the slow dance form khosidl—which is almost unknown in the American discography and represents a large shift in the musical tastes of immigrant Jewish communities. These pieces show the introspective side of the khosidl genre, which developed as way for secular, Misnagdic Jews to incorporate an element of Hasidic spirituality into what became a highly individual, expressive dance form.”
What is that of “Misnagdic”? Misnagdic are considered the oposition to Hasidism. Learn more on this page of the University of Calgary.
If you play yourself, there are many transcriptions of the recordings by the Orchestra, at the page Belfology, by Alan Fendler and Roger Reid. This is the transcription of our today’s selection.
I found this picture at the website of JewishBoston. The artist is Chana Helen Rosenberg, born in 1946 in UK and settled in the historic city of Be’er Sheva (Israel). It represents the celebration of Simchat Torah.
Zibrok Trio is composed by Boris Winter on violin, Laurent Derache on accordion and Youen Cadiou on double bass. The lady on the film is an actress, Maud Gentien, no a musician from the trio. As far as I know they don’t have much recorded production neither a special relationship with Jewish music but this piece is quite enjoyable and… it is time to dance!
Click the picture to watch the video:
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I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
It is as symple as sending … this link to sign up.
October 2nd, 2020. Shabbat of Sukkot is almost here
Let’s set the mood in our sukkah with some old Algerian music
Hello! How are you? This is the first Sukkot of Music Before Shabbat. I tried to find some specific music for the occasion but I didn’t find any with enough artistic interest.
So I come back to the thread of the Algerian Jewish artists that I started with Reinette L’Oranaise in this previous edition. I am really surprised that there is almost no information at the Internet about these people in English. Their work is outstanding and there are many wonderful recordings, like the one that I share with you today. About our protagonist, there is also not much even in French.
I hope the music will make you feel in the mood for Sukkot, with this Southern taste. In my city the day is stormy, cold, rainy… and it will possible be perimetrically confined soon. So far, no shelter has been enough to keep us save from the pandemic and the data are worriying. I hope I will have better news in one week, after the Simjat Torah. In the meantime, enjoy this beautiful festivity.
If you like this, as usual, please: share it with your friends! Thank you in advance.
Cheikh, or Sheikh, Zouzou, whose real name was Joseph Moise Benganoun, was born in Oran in 1862. Or somewhere else in the province of Ain Témouchent in 1890? There is controversy. According to the first data, he would have lived 110 years, until he died in 1972! According to the second, he died in Nice on March 18th of 1975, at his 85 years old. Which one do you believe? *
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* This is an addendum from day 11th of October. I have received a message on the chat of the website by a person who presents herself as Johanna and she explains: “Cheikh Zouzou was my mom grandpa. His name was Joseph Guenoun ( and not Benguenoun) and he deceived indeed at Nice in 1975 at the age of 85. Thank you for reminding him and his great and unique music and way of playing and singing. Best regards.” As you can imagine, this message is very moving for me. Unluckily, Johanna didn’t leave her data and I have no way of answering to her apart from including this addendum here. Johanna, if you read this, please send me your email to info@mundimapa.com so I will be able to thank you and maybe even to make you some questions and make a new edition of Music Before Shabbat about your grand-grandfather.
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Anyway, what is true is that he was a singer and a violin virtuoso. And as I already mentioned in the chapter dedicated to Saoud L’Oranaise, Zouzou was also trained by that master. He had his own band and was demanded for weddings and celebrations, and that he must have had some acknowledgement as he was recorded by the national television. He is mentioned and the context of the time of his working activity in this post.
The picture is from the blog by Rol Benzaken, the first place where I learn about the story of Saul Bensoussan and the terrible crime.
The song about the crime by Saul Bensoussan
The lyrics of this song is a poem based on real facts. This story is referred in different sources, and the most complete explanation is a post in Facebook by Dz De Luxe. According to that, in 1888 a tragic event took place in Oran, which was at that time a very cosmopolitan city.
In this picture you see the synagogue from Oran, started to be built in 1879 and converted into a mosque in 1975. It is from JudaicAlgeria, where you can read more about this synagogue.
Oran had been under Spanish control from 1509 to 1708 and from 1732 to 1792. Between 1708 and 1732 it was under the Ottoman Empire. The place was lossing the interest for the Spanish government and the last straw was the earthquake that destroyed the city in 1790. It was again under the Ottomans until 1831, when it would become under the French control. Many Spanish settled in the city then.
So, as Dz De Luxe and other sources (like this) explain, the young Oranese Jew Saul Bensoussan, 20 years old, fell in love with a beautiful Spanish Christian woman by the name of Maria Molina. That was a forbidden love, as they were from different communities, and it lasted two years. During a day of bullfighting in the bullring, Maria Molina saw a beautiful bullfighter from Spain and they both fell in love. When Bensoussan was warned, he mercilessly stabbed Maria Molina out of jealousy, love and rage.
The Chief Rabbi of Oran, Calo, obtained a presidential pardon for him, and Bensoussan was sentenced to life imprisonment in a prison in Cayenne, Guyana. Disgruntled Spaniards invaded the Jewish quarter of Oran, which led to a civil war between the two communities. The French sent soldiers (specifically, the tirailleurs Sénégalais, about whose interesting history you can read more here), to protect the Jews.
The poem was written in Arabic and Hebrew by the Chief Rabbi of Oran to stop extra-community marriages and was first sung by Sheikh Redouane Ben Sari in 1930 followed by Sheikh Zouzou in 1938.
Click the picture for more more by Sheikh Zouzour. I took if from the channel of El Hassar Salim.
“For its quality, originality, folk innovation and collaborative work.”
Xabi Aburruzaga wins the award Musika Bulegoa Saria for his album Bost
Photo by Javier Martín, with Xabi Aburruzaga and his musicians collaborators Aitor Uribarri and Eriz Perez
It is a pleasure to share good news in these times. Also to receive them. Yesterday Xabi explained to me the specific details of this award and sent me several photos. In this one above, although you can’t see their smile, you can feel it.
This is the fourth edition of these awards created by the Euskal Herriko Musika Bulegoa Elkartea (Basque Country Music Office). The merits recognised by the jury have been:
“For the quality, originality, folk innovation and collaborative work”.
“Mekoleta is called to be one of the great songs of Basque music.”
“The whole work has a perfect sound.”
And about the work Bost they indicate, for example, that “Xabi Aburruzaga has made a journey inside himself and has dedicated Bost to the public, to continue feeding the universe of Basque folk music”.
Xabi has just sent me this photo from his studio, Xabi’s Road, in Zamudio, very close to Bilbao airport, and I cannot resist sharing the moment with you with his spontaneity. Xabi has given me permission. The studio also hosts productions by other artists.
“Vigüela to Interact with Audience in Conciertajo, Send your Couplets and Tales”. This is the beginning of the report about Conciertajo.com in World Music Central. Read it all, including some statements by Araceli Tzigane and by Juan Antonio Torres, the musical director of the band, in the web or here below. Thank you very much, Ángel!!!
With Kol Nidre by Yisrael Oshri, getting into the mood for Yom Kippur
Hello! How are you? I have been waiting many months since I discovered this man, Yisrael Oshri, in Youtube and I saved this video for the time around Yom Kippur. I will be very brief in this occasion, in part because I have no information at all about this person. There are some videos in the Youtube Channel but no biographic info. If you know anything about him, please, let me know. I will come back in the future with more Yemenite music, by the way.
Today is Shabbat Shuvah, the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I have learnt if from MyJewishLearning. And the people in Israel are again in confinement. I am remembering my dear Igal Mizrahi Gulaza and so many friends there that are going through this holy days in this situation. Here in my city, we are not confined so far, but the situation could change at any moment.
I will come back to you next Shabbat, after Yom Kippur. If you are going to make fasting, I wish you an easy fast. And in any case, have a good holy day.
If you like this, as usual, please: share it with your friends! Thank you in advance.
Shabbat is almost here. Rosh Hashanah is almost here
May you be inscribed in the Book of Life. Let’s begin this time of reflection with a contemporary chazzan of outstanding artistry, Rabbi Hagay Batzri
Hello! How are you? This is the first Rosh Hashanah of Music Before Shabbat and I am thrilled for sharing with you this moment, that is full of meaning. I think you can take advantage of this time to reflect, whether you are religious or not. To find yourself and to consider your contribution to the world. Have a prosperous, a sweet year. Shanah Tovah.
As usual, you have the video at the bottom. And if you like this, as usual, please: share it with your friends! Thank you in advance.
“Music crosses all boundaries and unifies us”. The voice of Rabbi Hagay Batzri
I love the old recordings. In previous editions we have listened to Sephardic chazzanim, like İsak Maçoro (don’t miss to listen to his Avinu Malkeinu, in this previous edition) and İzak Algazi (listen him in a love song, here). It is not that easy to find currently alive singers who get close to them and that haven’t tended to a commercial sound. Even so, some are really enchanting, like David Kadosh (listen to him in this edition) and our protagonist of today: Rabbi Hagay Batzri.
According to his Facebook Page (from where I got the portrait), “Rabbi Hagay Batzri was born in Jerusalem into a family of rabbis and cantors. He is descended from the Ben Ish Chai and from Rabbi Yehuda Ftaya, and his father heads the supreme rabbinical court of Israel. In 1997 he received his rabbinical smicha from Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, Chief Rabbi for the State of Israel.”
Who was the Ben Ish Chai? According to Chabad.org, “Chacham Yosef Chaim (1832-1909), known as the Ben Ish Chai, was a highly-revered Torah scholar and master of Kabbalah. Based in Baghdad, Iraq, he was recognized by the Sephardic community both locally and abroad as an eminent Halachic authority.”
And Rabbi Yehuda Ftaya? According to JewishIdeas.org, Hakham Yehudah Moshe Yeshua Fetaya (in the picture, from Wikipedia, was born in Baghdad in 1860 and was disciple of the Ben Ish Chai.
What is chacham? According to Jewish-Languajes.org, khokhem, chocham, chochem, hacham, haham, chuchum, chochem, means wise, genious and for Sephardic, it is the same as rabbi.
“Rabbi Batzri enjoys teaching what he calls practical kabbalah, the kabbalistic reasons and explanations behind Jewish laws, concepts, and practices. He balances his study of Jewish mysticism and his rabbinical duties with concert performances in the United States, Israel, and other countries. […] He has performed, among other venues, at UCLA with the world-renowned Yuval Ron Ensemble. His musical philosophy is simple and beautiful: “Music crosses all boundaries and unifies us.” For Rabbi Batzri, creating music is a way of expressing gratitude and appreciation for all we have. When we make music, we embrace life and all living creatures.”
What is Keter Musaf? Keter means crown and has a special meaning in Kabbalah. You can learn more, here. Musaf is an additional offering or prayer, for holy days like Shabbat, Shavuot, Pessach or Rosh Hashanah. It is an aditional religious service for those days, added to the usual Amidah. Musaf would be a fourth Amidah (the usual days they are three Amidah).
Keter is part of the Kedushah. Kedushah means holiness and it is the sanctification of God’s name during the Amidah prayer. What is Amidah? According to MyJewishLearning, “the Amidah is the core of every Jewish worship service, and is therefore also referred to as HaTefillah, or “The prayer.” Amidah, which literally means, “standing,” refers to a series of blessings recited while standing.” The part of Keter in the Musaf prayer recited on Shabbat is sang only by Sepharadim, not by Askhenazim.
According to DailyHalacha.com, “The recitation of “Keter” at Musaf thus marks a very significant and sacred moment, when we join together with the heavenly angels for the purpose of declaring Hashem’s sanctity.”
How are you? I hope well. In this edition we’ll pay attention to some ways of facing the current challenge for our activities of live music as well as to some interesting dates for our community.
I am contacting you from El Carpio de Tajo, Vigüela‘s village. Tomorrow, Wednesday 16th, it will be the online opening gala concert of Jeonju Intl’ Sori Festival. For some days we are working in the preparation, making technical checks and rehearsals. 9 bands from different countries and from their locations will play together. Yes, together! Check the details below. This is one of the creative responses to the situation we are facing.
The Spanish office of the International Labour Organization has provided us the chance to make a virtue of necessity. On October 17th we have an online event that will be the culmination of one month of participation of the public in the design of a concert in which the repertoire is created with their direct support. Learn more below too.
Neal Copperman, from AMP Concerts, explains us how they are keeping the activity, with live offline events too. I find their experience very inspiring!
And sadly, WOMEX had to announce the decision of cancelling the on-site event and the change into an online event. I am curious to see what they surprise us with.
Meanwhile, I really miss our old normality. Some drops of hope take place day by day. The new tour Klangkosmos, the first one after the beginning of the pandemic, organized by alba Kultur in North Rhine-Westphalia, is taking place and, so far, it is going well. The band on tour is Haratago, from Iparralde (North Basque Country). You can learn more about Birgit Ellinghaus, director of alba Kultur, on this edition.
Do you want to share any useful experience you have had during this difficult time or another content relevant for our community of the global music? Contact me. And if you find this interesting, share it with your friends. You can read the previous issueshere.
Thanks for your attention and remember that during the reading you can listen to some great music by our artists collaborators –>
· And more difficult still: 9 artists from 9 locations, playing together for Sori Festival’s gala concert
· Rethinking the program, with Neal Copperman from AMP Concerts
· Our value proposal or how to make virtue from the neccesity. The online event for ILO by Vigüela + Mapamundi
· Interesting dates
· News from our sister projects
AND MORE DIFFICULT STILL!!!
9 artists from 9 locations will play together online for the Sori Festival’s Opening Gala. Tomorrow, Wednesday, at 19:40 UTC+9
This issue of the monthly magazine has as the main topic the bravity of our community when facing the situation that is making our lifes and works so complicated.
This morning I found this picture in Facebook. The team of Sori Festival, in South Korea, are preparing for the online gala concert that will take place on Wednesday. I have been directly involved so I know for how long all this has been organiced to make it possible. 9 artists, from their locations, will play together, listening to each others. It will be not just a succession of performances. The show can be watched from the festival’s Youtube channel.
The artists will be: Khoomei Beat (Tuva Republic, Russia), ESSE-Quintet (St. Petersburg, Russia), Sebastian Gramss (Germany), Cube Band (Taiwan), Constantinople (Canada, Iran), Vigüela (Spain), Toine Thys’ Overseas (Belgium, Egypt, Luxembourg, Brazil), Boi Akih Duo (Netherlands), Imran Khan & Naim Khan (India), 2020 Sori Festival Sinawi (South Korea).
RETHINKING THE PROGRAM FOR THE NEW CHALLENGE WITH NEAL COPPERMAN FROM AMP CONCERTS
You might already know Neal Copperman. He is one of the usual attendants of Womex as well as co-director of Globalquerque! for years, as well as director of AMP Concerts, the non-profit organization that has keep going on many activities despite the pandemics, in their state of New Mexico. In this meaningful interview he explaines more about their usual activities and the current ones they are developing in the context of the pandemic. Really thrilling!
Mapamundi Música: Thanks for taking the time to chat with me Neal. Can you quickly introduce yourself?
Neal Copperman: It’s always nice to chat with you Araceli. I’m sorry I won’t be seeing you at WOMEX this year!
I’m the founder and executive director of AMP Concerts. We are a non-profit that presents events across the state of New Mexico, in the United States. In a usual year, we put on over 200 events, ranging from free monthly events in the local libraries to large outdoor concerts for 8,000 people. And everything in between. We do not have our own venue and rent spaces of all sizes across the state, whatever makes sense for the event. A third of our programs are free, and we have a nice mix of school programs, workshops and residencies too.
MM: I think in your region the pandemic didn’t affect that much as in other places of the USA, did it?
NC: New Mexico is pretty isolated. With small populations and spread out population centers. And our Governor was once the Secretary of Health for New Mexico. As soon as things started to go South, she took it very seriously and has never let go. Sometimes that is frustrating, but mostly we support her efforts to keep our community safe. We are surrounded by some states with really terrible statistics, like Arizona and Texas. The other good thing about New Mexico is that we can go outside. We have mountains that rise out of my city that I can get to the top of within an hour. I can go on great bike rides.
MM: Despite the situation you have been able to do some nice things, haven’t you? Please, tell us what you’ve been doing during the pandemic.
NC: Obviously none of the things we usually do have been possible since March. We’ve been constantly reinventing ourselves, coming up with new programs and activities to bring music and arts to people virtually, keep local musicians employed and just stay connected with our community.
We started streaming as soon as the pandemic shut down our shows and have presented 20 streaming events. We film them in closed theaters, outdoor spaces and my favorite – the socially distanced neighborhood block party, where audiences watch from their porch, front yard or driveway. The musicians usually live on the same block, so it’s a real gift from the musicians to their neighbors.
We have also produced a community art contest (Art As Antibodies), a series of single song videos in iconic locations around Santa Fe (Postcards from Santa Fe) and we are in the midst of a run of drive-in shows on an equestrian center’s polo field.
HIPICO Santa Fe drive-in concert venue ?
MM: How are you managing to keep the finances alive within the company? Are you managing to make these initiatives profitable or at least, not losing money with them?
NC: That is an excellent question. Sadly, what we are doing is not a viable business model. We think it’s important and we are working super hard to stay active and engaged, but without putting on viable concerts, we don’t have any regular business income.
We successfully grabbed a number of bailout and emergency funding opportunities. The government issued a loan that you don’t have to pay back if you use it all for payroll, so we got that and it was 2.5 months of payroll.
We got emergency grants from a City arts fund and from the National Endowment for the Arts.
We also reached out to some historical funders the first week of the pandemic and said – Look, things are falling apart and no one knows what is going to happen. But we are primed and ready to make interesting things happen in the community regardless of the limitations, and we will pay local artists and keep people employed. Anything you can give us will help us make that happen. And one funder (who had actually cut our funding) gave us $5K, which is what we started with. And the City gave us $12K to do virtual programs.
Some projects cost very little. Like the art competition. We gave out $2,000 in cash prizes, but I think it would have been just as successful had we just given out donated prizes. Beside the $2K in prizes, it probably only cost a few hundred dollars.
We cut staff salaries at the higher levels by 40% and at the lower levels by 10%.
Most of the live streams do not pay for themselves. But we use the money that we raise, alongside audience donations, to help cover the costs.
The Drive-Ins are the most expensive projects. They cost upwards of $15K night. They are not paying for themselves either. However, we would usually do a free concert and movie series all summer. We raise enough money in sponsorships to pay for that project. Since it didn’t happen this year, we asked our main sponsors if we could roll their money into other projects and they have been cool with that.
The remaining sponsorships we are using towards the Drive-Ins. We are hopeful that some of the Drive-Ins will pay for themselves. But we are able to make up the difference right now too.
We take donations on top of everything we do, and people have been pretty generous with that.
We have probably paid over $30K to local artists and $10K to local tech people since the pandemic started. I’m pretty happy about that!
I did leave Globalquerque! – the world music festival that I helped found and run for the last 15 years. It wasn’t going to happen this year anyway and I decided to focus my energy full time in making my company be as vibrant as possible during the pandemic and poised to come out the other side once it was done. But that was a bittersweet decision. I might not feel it so much this fall, but I’ll probably feel it a lot more next year!
Reminder of voting time for proyect Art as Antibodies ?
MM: I interviewed Tom Frouge in a previous edition of this magazine about Globalquerque!. Will he continue working on it?
NC: Tom will continue to work on ¡Globalquerque!. He’s now the main person in charge. Before it was just the two of us.
MM: I think our community are people used to facing complications and we are also quite stubborn because we have a strong vision that allows us to pursue our dreams despite the obstacles.
NC: That is totally true! We are dedicated and passionate! And most of our job is problem solving and figuring how to make impossible things happen 🙂
Check also these links related to the conversation:
Official website, with pages for the Art As Antibodies and Postcards projects: http://www.ampconcerts.org
Hipico venue, Carlos Medina’s Postcards from Santa Fe flyer, Art as Antibodies flyer, from the Facebook page of AMP Concerts.
**** Do you have a world music festival and you want to be included in our mini interviews? Contact us.****
The series of Challenges for the festivals will continue soon
VIRTUE FROM NECESSITY. OUR ONLINE EVENT WITH A TWIST
Technology can be not only a way to reach our audience from a screen but also to engage them in the artistic creation itself. Let me explain you our value proposal for the festival Laborarte.
For some years, the office for Spain of the International Labour Organization has been doing the festival Laborarte (you can guess it is a game of words with labor -work- and arte -art-) in Madrid. It used to include conferences, concerts and exhibitions.
The director of the office has had in mind for some time to book Vigüela for 2020 its edition. In 2019 the festival didn’t take place. In the picture you see a frame of the 2018 promo video.
Considering the current situation, already in May he asked us a proposal for an online event for Laborarte. But he didn’t want just a concert in streaming. He wanted something else. What? That was his challenge: something online different than a streaming.
We started to reflect on how can we use the technology to strengthen our value proposal, taking into account the artistic possibilities of the music we work with. Popular music that has given the voice to the people by channelling their claims, needs and complaints of their daily life. So let’s give the voice to the people! With this idea in mind we decided to develope three ways of collaboration by the public, two previous and one during the event:
Survey to check the most relevant topics nowadays for our public, in the field of labour. We are now dealing with the tele-work, working from home with kids, temporary layoff, physical conditions of isolation at work, 8 hours at work with the mask, reaching the work place by subway during a pandemic… Which are the topics that produce more headaches to our public? The results will feed the band to create new lyrics about the most relevant ones. The lyrics in the music styles of jota, fandango and seguidilla are couplets. In just four verses you transmit a strong idea.
Contest of life stories related to work. In a short text (300 words), any person can submit a life story, real or invented. A professional jury of journalists will chose the best one, that will become a song in shape of romance, the term used for story telling songs in Spanish tradition.
During the event, there will be time for performing the results of the previous tools as well as some free time in which the band will improvise about the topics that the public requested in the chat. Musicians has been always at the service of the clients, as in any other profession. Do you want us to dedicate a song to you mom? Do you want us to sing about flirting in mask times? About the Sunday blues? Tell us!
We have set up the website www.conciertajo.com (Tajo is the river that passes by the village and tajo is an informal way of saying work in Spain) to collect all the infos and participation tools.
Of course, all this is not possible without a band that is open to do any crazy and demanding idea and of an organization like ILO Spain that has trusted us. We’ll find out soon how does all it result ?.
INTERESTING DATES
Hundreds of online events are taking place this season and many are really appealing. For instance:
Arts Midwest + Western Arts Alliance 2020 Conference. October 6-9. Described as “a four-day virtual convening to hear from thought leaders, gather new ideas, connect with colleagues, and map a way forward.” The registration for professionals is open, here.
Fira Mediterrània de Manresa. October 13-18. This year it will combine on site and online activities. The registration for professionals is open, here.
And, ehem, a moment for self-promotion. On 5th November I will participate in Noam Vazana‘s proyect of interviews in the frame of her Why DIY initiative. I am proud for being considered interesting enough to be in this list of interviewed that includes, between many others, Davide Mancini (check also my interview with him about the festival Musicastrada, here), Minna Huuskonen, Martyna Markowska or Balázs Weyer.
Global Music Month 2020. The team of BU Global Music Festival will host the program of day 1st October, as a part of Global Music Month 2020, “with 19 festivals and presenters from the US and Canada joining together for a month of online celebration of music from around the world, from August 29 to October 1.” So, we are in that month. Check the complete program here. You can read the interview with Marié Abe from the BU Global Music Festival made at the beginning of the pandemic in Europe, here.
NEWS FROM SISTER PROJECTS + CHART TIME
Two brief news from Transglobal World Music Chart of enough interest to share with all the colleagues and friends:
A step to break the language barrier by TWMC: “For around three weeks now, if you access the website, it now includes a plugin to translate the website automatically to all the languages included in Google translator. It is very intuitive to use and shows clearly our intention to be open to other languages. The Album Submissions page has also been edited to reflect this approach. Nowadays, technology allows us to resolve this situation, not perfectly but reasonably. We expect that the most internationally-oriented producers will continue communicating in English but now we can also welcome others that don’t have those skills and might be producing musical jewels that wouldn’t reach us if they had to communicate in English.”
The Best TWMC albums of 2019-2020 Season are here! Congratulations for the great work, artists, producers, panelists! Check the link to read about the change of period for the annual chart.
About Mundofonías, we have re-started the activity after a break in August and our monthly favourites are the last albums by Khusugtun, Trio Tekke and L’Attirail.
Juan Antonio Vázquez re-starts A La Fuente, for Radio Clásica-RNE, in October. In the meantime, during July-September, his work for that station has been La Ruta de las Especias.
WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS
Mapamundi Música is an agency of management and booking. Learn more here. Check our proposals at our website.
Feel free to request info if you wish. For further information about us, get in touch by email, telephone (+34 676 30 28 82), our website or at our Facebook.
And the life history of Bob Cohen, founder of Di Naye Kapelye, will inspire us with his commitment to an almost, almost lost legacy. An outstanding story, the cherry on top before the Yamim Noraim.
Hello, how are you? I am almost shivering with emotion to share with you the interview with Bob Cohen. Why? I must tell you that my personal background, my family roots, are not connected to music at all and much less with these musics that were very difficult to reach more than 20 years ago. Moreover, I am from the periphery of Europe, a country where there are not Jewish people for more than 5 centuries, apart from the ones that came as inmigrants during the last decades.
In such a context, to discover in 1998 something like Di Naye Kapelye and their powerful rendition of Dem Rebns Tants would cause the piece to be marked in my memory.
And 22 years after, the man behind it is answering my questions with immense generosity and explaining us how the magical mix of commitment, effort, talent and ethics made all that work possible. Enjoy.
As usual, you have the video at the bottom. And if you like this, as usual, please: share it with your friends! Thank you in advance.
A few days ago I realiced that Poland and Ukraine were quite present in this MBS. But somehow I was not reaching to so many facts about Hungarian Jewish popular music, a Hungarian cantor or anything recorded before the World War II… While trying to find something I found phrases like there is nothing recorded, nor written in scores and not even described, about the Jewish music from Hungary from before the Holocaust. Heartbreaking.
But I thought what about Di Naye Kapelye? They play Hungarian Jewish music. How did they do that? The answer is this interview with Bob Cohen, founder of the band. This man on the right is he in a profile picture from his Facebook.
Bob was born at the USA. He will unveils his life story for us. If you want to know more, don’t miss a visit to his blog, Dumneazu: Ethnomusicological Eating East of Everywhere. Along the interview I will include also some digressions, in this colouras well as many links (in orange) in case you want to learn more.
I am moved by Bob’s generous answer, so deep and detailed, that is a lesson for life.
When you decided to travel to Hungary to make research, why did you do that? Where your parents from there?
I moved to Hungary in 1989 to teach English at the ELTE Law University and to study traditional Transylvanian fiddle style with friends in the Hungarian Tanchaz movement such as Csaba Ökrös.
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– This man in the picture is Csaba Ökrös. He passed away last year (2019 June). Click the picture to watch a video with him at his 20 years old, in 1980. Bob has a thrilling tribute in his blog–
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I wanted to continue to learn Hungarian language and the difficult fiddle style of central Transylvania. My Mother was born in Hungary and left during World War II, but I still have family here and had visited and fallen in love with Hungarian folk music and the “dance house” revival of traditional music during family visits in the 1970s. (My father’s family originates in Bessarabia, today’s Moldova.)
I was raised in the Bronx at a time when Yiddish language culture was still strong among secular working class Jews. My parents and grandparents spoke Yiddish with each other, but they did not want the children to learn it (I spoke Hungarian with my mother.)
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– In theedition with the greetings from David Krakauerit was mentioned that “His grandparents arrived to the USA from Eastern Europe at the end of XIX century and, after the religious prosecution they had suffered, they decided to leave all that behind and to talk only English.” Now with Bob we see a similar experience of avoiding the permanence of the cultural roots associated to so many disasters, when moving thousands of kilometres trying to create a new future.
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Like many young New York Jews – Henry Sapoznik (who was with us in a previous edition) and Andy statman, for example – as a teenager I played bluegrass and also listened to a lot of the very active immigrant Balkan musicians in the New York area.
Around 1975 some of these musicians in the folk fiddle scene began to pass around cassette tapes of klezmer recordings at the Appalachian fiddle jam sessions held at the old Eagle Tavern on 9th Avenue. A lot of us folk musicians also went to concerts sponsored by the Balkan Arts Center (now the Center for Traditional Music and Dance) which featured early klezmer revival artists such as Zev Feldman and Andy Statman (in the picture on the right, that is from Discog), who also presented concerts of newly rediscovered Yiddish perfomers such as Dave Tarras.
I then moved to Boston where I became friends with musicians who would play in the Klezmer Conservatory Band (Frank London and I go wayyyy back… we met while jamming in a salsa band) although in Boston my musical life was mostly involved in Greek music, African music, and reggae.
I did not actively pursue Jewish music until I was living in Hungary and traveling to Transylvania to find older Romani fiddlers to learn the Transylvanian village style of violin. They would quickly identify me as Jewish (I had a beard) and begin to play Jewish melodies that they knew. I asked what these were, and they told about playing for Jewish weddings before the Holocaust, so I began to travel around Romania and Hungary actively seeking older musicians to ask if they knew any Jewish music. This led me to do the same when I was back visiting the United States – I went around Brooklyn and the Bronx visiting Orthodox Jewish communities and working with established Klezmer researchers like Michael Alpert and Zev Feldman.
Are you settled in Hungary now, or in the USA?
I have lived in Budapest since 1989, and I am now a dual Hungarian-US citizen. I travel a lot, but most of my time is in Budapest these days. I live right in the middle of the old Budapest Jewish ghetto – 7th district – and there are synagogues, kosher butcher shops, and Jewish bookstores all around this area. Unlike Krakow, where the Kazimerz neighborhood is a highly visable monument to a nearly extinct Jewish past, the 7th district is a living Jewish area with little on the outside to show its Jewish connections. Budapest has at least 50,000 Jews, with 11 functioning synagogues, and three neighbohoods that can be considered “Jewish neighborhoods” with kosher markets, mikvehs, and synagogues. I can walk out my door and speak Yiddish any day – although Yiddish is no longer very widespread. I tend to identify with our local Orthodox community – as opposed to the larger more assimilationist Neolog community – however I am not particularly religious.
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How did you find the materials? I have read that there was nothing recorded from the Hungarian Jews of before the World War II. Is it true? If so, how did you manage to create your music?
Nobody had sought out Hungarian Jewish folkore, as Bartok had with Hungarian folk music or with other groups. Jews were considered “cosmopolitan” and therefore did not, by the definition of early nationalism, have “folklore.” Hungarian Jews were granted full citizenship rights in 1867 – and defined themselves not as an ethnic minority (as in Poland or Romania) but as “Hungarians of Mosaic faith.” Hungary was a birthplace of the Zionist movement, and Yiddish was looked down upon by Hebrew language supporters. Among assimilated middle class Hungarian “Neolog” Jews, “folklore” was seen as superstition. The Yiddish speaking Orthodox community was concentrated in the rural East and North of the countryside, and had little interacttion with the educated Jewish elite of Budapest. And then the Holocaust arrived and wiped out 80% of Hungary’s Jews.
Dr. Judit Frigyesi had done extensive collecting of Hungarian Jewish religious music before 1990, but official attitudes under communism had kept her research suppressed. So beginning in 1990 I began traveling on a regular basis to rural regions where Jews had been populous: in Romania, especially in Moldavia, Maramures, Crisana, Bucharest. I taped recorded interviews with older Jewish community members, and sought out older professional Romani musicians who remembered repetoire from the past when they had played for Jewish weddings.
I was incredibly lucky to meet the Yiddish writer and theater director Itsik Svarts in Iasi, who was born in 1905 and had taken an interest in Yiddish folklore in the 1920s and actually knew many of the key figures in 20th century Yiddish folklore, such as the poet Itsik Manger.
If you want to learn more, visit this link in KlezmerShackwith a report by Itsik Svarts about Jewish Musicians in Moldavia
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His wife, Cili, was the best Yiddish folk singer I had ever heard. Itsik guided me and mentored me and was my link to the world of Yiddish Southeast Europe before the Holocaust.
Cili Svarts sings a little piece in the album by Di Naye Kapelye A Mazeldiker Yid (Oriente, 2001)
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I learned a lot from the musicians of the Manyo Band, also known as the Tecso Band, from Tyaciv, Ukraine. They were Hutsul (Ruthenian) Romani who still played many Jewish tunes they learned from their father. I ended up playing with them on tour a lot and brought them to festivals in Holland and New York.
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In this picture fromBob’s blog you see the Manyo Band in Greenwich Village, New York, 2010.
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My Mother was born in Veszprem, Hungary. Her Mom was actually born in Travnik, Bosnia. She came to the USA in 1948.
To learn more about the Jewish people in Veszprem, check this. In advance, I tell you that around the 90% of them didn’t survive the war. And about Travnik, learn more here. It was even worse. For a follow up of the situation about synagogues and Jewish present, check this blog, Jewish Heritage Travel.
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My Dad’s family came to the USA in 1924. My Grandfather was born in Criuleni, Moldova (Krivlyany in Yiddish.) His name was Onitskansky, which was changed to Cohen (his Jewish/Hebrew paternal name) because the immigration officials could not spell it. Onitscan (nowadays, Onițcani) is a few miles south of Criuleni, and is “famous” as the historical occurrence of the first pogrom in 1726 on accusations of blood libel (killing Christian children for blood for Passover matzoh).
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You can learn more details about the Jewish communities in the region of Iasi and about this specific event, in the website of Jewishgen.org
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Just this month I received a message from a Jewish historian from Chisinau that they had discovered the grave stones of the Onițcani Jews and she was amazed to meet descendants of them.
I visited Criuleni in 2008 while participating in Alan Bern’s “the Other European Project” (you can read about it on my blog…). My Grandmother came from the village of Telenesti in Moldova.
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You can learn a little bit about the Jews in Telenesti, hereand on Bob’s blog.
Around 1993 I formed Di Naye Kapelye in order to play a “klezmer” music based on the descriptions I had gathered from the information on how Jewish music was performed in small towns and villages before the influence of 20th century technology, mass emmigration, and the holocaust. It was a reconstruction, but Itsik Svarts would coach me on how the band sounded – I would tape rehearsals in Budapest and play them when I visited Itsik in Iasi and he would offer his opinions. In this way, for example, we reconstructed the use of the cobza (Romanian lute) as he heard Romani bands using it for Jewish Purim celebrations in his Moldavian village before 1920.
In Di Naye Kapelye our clarinetist and singer was Yankl Falk, who is an orthodox cantor in Portland Oregon and now an archivist of Jewish Music. He has a expert command of Jewish liturgical traditions and of living Hasidic repertoire, and also traveling with him always put us in touch with local Jewish communities (we have to keep our clarinetist supplied with kosher food). We also played several years with Jake Shulman-Ment, a young New York Klezmer violinist who is probably the best in the world without exaggeration. Jake spent a year living in Botosani in northeast Romania researching Jewish influences in Romanian folk music.
I collected most of the material we use from older Romani musicians in Hungary and Romania, several of whom had played in bands with Jewish musicians until the 1960s such as András Horváth from the Szatmar region of Hungary, Ferenc “Arus” Berki from Cluj in Transylvania (who used to actively ask among other Roma musicians for Jewish songs for me to record), Arpad Toni from Voivodeni in Mures County, and many musicians from the Covaci family of musicians in Maramures (the brothers Ioannei, Nicolae, and Rajna Covaci as well as Gheorghe Covaci from Sacel and Ion “Paganini” Covaci from Saliste, and Gheorghe Covaci “Cioata” from Vadu Izei) as well as musicians in the Republic of Moldova (Fanfara din Edinets, Slava Farber, Arkady Gendler, German Goldenshtyen, Adam Stinga, and Marin Bunea). Many of these older musicians have now passed on.
Some people (in the klezmer world) have called us “the right wing of klezmer” and say we are trying to play a museum piece from 150 years ago. My answer has always been simply “Well, we learned this from a living musician three months ago.” At performances I encourage the audience to get up and dance, saying to them that this is not a music museum.
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I need to comment a reflection about this last paragraph by Bob. I have seen this kind of argumentations in many other occasions and cultural contexts, in different countries: a claim suppossedly againts the “purists”. Most of the times, the ones who claim are the ones who didn’t want to make the extreme effort to learn and interiorize from the sources and the ones that pretend to “renovate” or to “reshape for its use nowadays” without the real knowledge of that tradition they are supossedly renovating. The deep knowledge of the tradition drives to a natural updating. But you can’t renovate something that you don’t master.
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What about the current activity of life music (I mean, before the pandemic)?
Although the full band of Di Naye Kapelye rarely performs in Hungary – with two members living in the USA we usually get together only for larger festivals and tours – the five Hungarian members of Di Naye Kapelye still play for Jewish community events (but not for Hasidic weddings after the orthodox ban on orchestras in 2006. We used to play a lot of those.) In Budapest I play with accordinist Adam Moser for monthly Yiddish dance parties sponsored by a Jewish feminist collective called “Esztertaska” which are taught by Sue Foy, an American dance ethnomusicologist who studied Yiddish dance in New York with folksinger Bronya Sakina.
I played in a small formation called “Shrayim” which was primarily for the Orthodox Jewish community some years ago – strictly “kosher” music (no secular love songs, for example, mostly Hasidic music and usually in Orthodox community spaces.)I also play with Daniel Kahn, Michael Alpert, Psoy Korolenko and Jake Shulman-Ment in “The Brothers Nazaroff” – a tribute to Yiddish folk singer Prince Nathan Nazaroff (here on the right it is the cover of their album). A documentary made about us called “Soul Exodus” is presently on European Netflix.
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About the song Dem Rebns Tants, where did you find this or how did you develop it? I like it a lot!!
Its from a gramophone recording of the Art Shryer Orchestra reissued on the CD “Klezmer Pioneers“. Here is the original.
I have chosen the first piece I listened from Di Naye Kapelye, 22 years ago. It is also a special song because we put it some lyrics over it and sang in a jingle of the radio show Mundofonías, that I do with Juan Antonio Vázquez.
Click the picture to listen to the recording:
I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
It is as symple as sending … this link to sign up
Would you like to travel to South Korea? Vigüela would have gone to perform there for their first time… For now, it will have to be through the wire.
In the meantime, let me tell you a Korean tale ?
Hello, how are you? I hope well!
This year Vigüela, like most of us, has lost the chance to do many wonderful things, like playing for the first time in Greece and to debut in South Korea. But, they will share a very special moment with the oustanding Jeonju International Sori Festival. Enter our Facebook that day September 16th at about 12 noon (CET) to see us! There will be 9 artists from different countries.
And the promised tale? Yes, yes, under the video ? and, before, a little bit of context:
The name of the festival comes from the tradition of Pansori. What is Pansori? You might know already. Very brieftly, it is a collection of epic stories that are sung by one singer and accompanied only by subtle percussion. The percussionist pulls and responds in a very punctual manner. As you will see in the video below, the person singing also performs the song as an actor or actress. He or she carries a fan in the right hand and a handkerchief in the left, used to represent the objects that are been talked about.
A small set of Pansori has been preserved, and there are five of them that are almost always sung. But keep in mind that each Pansori can last up to 5 hours! 5️⃣ It is a very difficult art and there are artists who specialize in only one of the Pansori.
Click on the image to see the video!
A part of Pansori Chunhyangga, by Kim Myeongsin & Jeong Sanghee
The promised Korean tale:
And what does this Pansori in the video talk about? Ohhh, it’s a love story ? between the daughter of a retired courtesan, Ch’unhyang, and Yi, the son of an aristocrat with a position as a magistrate in the city. But, oh, their love is impossible because they are from different classes. So they marry in secret ?.
But soon the boy’s father is sent to the capital to work and the boy has to accompany him. The new magistrate who comes to replace Yi’s father, has a craving with the girl. And, as she rejects him, he imprisons her. The magistrate says that if she does not agree to his desires, he will kill her ?.
What do you think that will happen? Will there be a happy ending or will it be a tragedy? Arg, what a lot of anxiety! Let’s go on!
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But, in the meantime, Yi has been hired as ? a secret inspector to investigate the complaints about the evil magistrate. He arrives in town in disguise and no one recognizes him. He goes to the jail and she doesn’t recognize him. So Yi lets the girl know who is he. She is already desperate and says that he will not be able to save her: tomorrow is the day of the execution. But that night there is a party and Yi comes. There at the party he is requested to compose and recite a poem, and he does. The poem tells the crimes of the magistrate to the attendants of the party. He is then arrested and Ch’unhyang is released. Yi and Ch’unhyang will get married, this time publicly. ? Long live life and long live love!
Remember: on September 16th, visit the Facebook page of the festival or of Vigüela at around 12 noon (Central European Time) to attend the online gala concert with 9 artists from different countries! Before that, feel free to watch also this recent video by Vigüela in an intimate moment:
I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I loved writing it for you.
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