2017 KlezmerQuerque Workshops -- Sunday, February 19th
Session #1 (10-11:30am) – $20.00 pick one class :
Bruce Bierman: The Joy of Yiddish Dance. Discover golden gems of the Hasidik and klezmer dance repertoire that are sure to lift your spirits and connect you to the joyous and soulful music of the Ashkenazi Jews.
Made for the folk by the folk, the main dances: freylekhs, shers, shers, zhoks, and khosidls are less concerned with fancy footwork and more with painting the dance floor with swirling circles, snaking lines, contra lines and varying patterns on the dance floor that create immediate connection and massive amounts of joy and laughter. You are invited to follow the Dance Master, but encouraged to shine with your own unique individual expression. All ages and experiences welcome.
Christina Crowder: Join accordionist and ethno-musicologist Christina Crowder for a session in which she will introduce new material from her Moldavian collections. The session will explore similarities and differences in the ways that Moldavians and Jews approached and transformed very similar music to suit their own cultural purposes. Issues of accompaniment style and texture, ornamentation, and elaboration will be addressed while learning a pile of cool tunes.
Jack “Yankl” Falk: "Baym Zeydns Tish" -- Yankl shares some of his favorite nigunim and zmiros from across the chasidic world (and beyond). Learn new tunes and enrich your own tish!
Lunch ‘n Learn (noon-2pm – Lecture begins at 12:45pm) $15.00 – Lunch Reservation DEADLINE is Thursday February 9th – Lecture Only is a $5.00 minimum donation:
Clara Byom – "Mixing in Too Much Jewish: American Klezmer Musicians of the 1950s to 1970s"
Building on Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s call for a greater understanding of music from the 1950s to 1970s, Clara demonstrates in this talk that the second generation American klezmorim maintained the traditional characteristics from their predecessors and foreshadowed the creative innovations of klezmer music in the revitalization. The klezmorim from the 1950s-1970s did not merely preserve a waning tradition, they primed the scene for the changes to follow through the continued development of the bulgar genre, incorporation of popular American dance styles, shifting instrumentation of ensembles, more rapidly changing and complex harmonic progressions, and increased use of chromaticism and the major scale.
Using examples from the repertoire of Sam and Ray Musiker, Sidney Beckerman, and Marty Levitt, Clara frames musical developments in klezmer music throughout the twentieth century as evidence of the increasing fluidity of Jewish-American identity and the music of the second-generation of klezmorim as a critical and too-often neglected part of the American klezmer tradition.
Session #2 (2:15-3:45pm) $20.00 pick one class:
Bruce Bierman: !Freilekh Fiesta! ---dance to groovy Latin klezmer music by the one and only Irving Fields of 'Bagels and Bongos' fame. Try the 'Havannah Negila' or the 'Mazeltov Merengue'. Basic steps, patterns and stylings of Yiddish and Latin dance will be taught and fused together in one picante mishmash.
Christina Crowder: Zhok, Slow Hora, Dobriden and the Ovoid Rhythm. This workshop session will be a deep dive into the most difficult rhythm to count, yet the easiest rhythm to feel in the klezmer/Moldavian Transitional repertoire. Both physics and metaphysics will be recklessly invoked to inspire participants to let go of rigid concepts of “three” and complicated notions of “five” in favor of a new epistemology of the Oval and the Ovoid rhythm as a guiding principle for the different styles and dance tempos within the broad category of Zsok/Slow Hora.
Jack “Yankl” Falk: "Jewish and Goyish" -- We are a people of many languages, and our song tradition reflects that. In this workshop, we'll go beyond the familiar Yiddish canon to discover the chasidic and Jewish folk songs that our Hungarian and Polish neighbors could understand Smacznego! Egeszegedre!
Session #3 (4-5:30pm) $20.00 pick one class:
Bruce Bierman: Yiddish Dance on Film -- Archival dance footage with 'footnotes' from the Golden
Age of Yiddish Cinema!
Yankl and Christina: "The Nign Inside the Nign" -- For vocalists and instrumentalists. Each one of us has a unique relationship with sacred melodies. In this workshop, we'll work together to go to the heart of Ashkenazic chant. Peel back the klezmer instrumental and find the nign at its core. For instrumentalists, the Nign workshop will help non-singers bring elements of vocal technique — and vocal thinking — into goth melodic and accompaniment playing.
“Zayt Gezints” – Be well / farewells / till next year (5:30pm-5:45pm)