Re: Sephardic shul

[Matthew Fields <fields...>]

In article <9301110439(dot)AA24649 (at) sisters(dot)cs(dot)uoregon(dot)edu> 
<jewish-music (at) israel(dot)nysernet(dot)org> writes:
>       The world of Jewish ethnomusicology literally encompasses most of
>       the world's music in one way or another (although I don't yet know
>       of any Hebrew Gamelan compositions...)
>it doesn't really count, i know, but steve reich has written a number of
>contemporary works in the "minimalist" genre (i have in mind chiefly
>his "music for 18 musicians") that seem based on, or at least inspired by,
>indonesian gamelon music.  i believe i read somewhere that reich studied
>gamelon music, as well as african drumming.  i believe reich himself is
>jewish.  incidentally, he also wrote a work entitled "tehillim" which is
>a setting of certain passages (sung in hebrew) from the psalms.  also
>by the way, one of the pianists in reich's ensemble is israeli (or at
>least has a very israeli-sounding name -- which escapes me at the moment).
>anyway, it's probably only a matter of time  :)

Steve also made alliyah and studied at a khazan shul for a while, and
some of the tunes that he brought back from that are in the voice parts
of Tehillim.  His biog lists degrees in drumming from Ghana and in
cantorial singing from Jerusalem.  Last I heard of him, he had done a
MIDI thingy on the programmatic topic of the trains to Auschwitz with
the Kronos Quartet.  But most of his music is written for his own group
of percussionists-plus (drummers-plus-winds, drummers-plus-piccolo,
drummers-plus-strings, drummers-plus-organs, etc.). Whether his stuff counts
as gamelan style would be a question I'd take up with pro gamelanists, I guess.

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