Jewish music here in Finland

[Hannu Toyryla, tel. +358-0-5118366, or (GSM) +358-50-3131694 <HTOYRYLA...>]

Despite the small size of the Jewish community here in Finland,
Jewish music is alive and well. Last Wednesday evening, on 8 September,
the pianist Hillel Tokazier presented an evening of Jewish music
to a packed audience in a villa here in Helsinki (which used to belong
to a Finnish opera singer but is now used for small concerts etc.).

The evening started with a brief overview of Jewish music through
history. Then we got plenty of examples, like hasidic nigunim,
Yiddish popular songs and newer Israeli songs. He put special
emphasis, so it seemed to me, to showing to the mainly non-Jewish
audience how familiar much of the music actually was. Did you know
that A yiddishe momme has been recorded in Finnish sometime back
in fifties as an ordinary popular song ? That that wedding
melody with words "..khosen kalleh mazel tov" has been a popular
dance tune even here ?

Towards the end of the evening he played songs with words from the
Siddur, in his own arrangements, which are also available as an
album.

To describe his playing, I just quote my wife : "He sounds like an
orchestra."

The evening was a success. The audience was responsive, as much as
you can expect from Finns, where you can very seldom expect something
like at least a part of the audience singing along a hasidic nigun
or Hineh ma tov.

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Note: This was an eyewitness report written by myself (Hannu Toyryla)

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