Jewish Music in London - news

[David Lewin <david...>]

I thoght readers of this news group might be interested to see two reports
published in London by the Jewish Chronicle of Friday 28.1.1994.

There is a very active Jewish music movement in London, and these two artivles
are just a sample:

                     Cash pledge boost for St Paul's concert plan

By Anna Maxted                           towards finding the rest of the money
--------------------------------------   for the concert.
  Plans for a major inter-faith con-       She added that the event would
cert at St Paul's Cathedral have been    feature Jewish and non-Jewish choirs
boosted by a pledge of 25,000 from      and would include a Hebrew sacred
the estate of millionaire hotel owner,   service.
Leopold Muller                             One highlight would be the perfor-
  The planned event is being organ-      mance of a new composition by
ised by the recently renamed Jewish      Malcolm Williamson, Master of the
Music Heritage Trust, and is intend-     Queen's Music, which. Ms Auerbach
ed as part of next year's B'nai B'rith   said, used a text by the Jewish novel-
Jewish Music Festival.                   ist, Bernice Rubens.
  The trust's chairwoman, Geraldine        The trust was originally established
Auerbach, told the JC this week:         in 1989 as the Jewish Music Festival
"We're very excited about the            Trust Ltd to finance and organise
pledge, but the estate said it was       the month-long biennial festival.
dependent on our matching the              Since then, the organisation's
donation. So we're geared up to          activities have broadened drama-
doing that."                             tically - a change which is reflected
  Austrian-born Mr Muller, who           in its new name.
died in 1988, came to Britain before       Ms Auerbach said; "We are the
the Second World War as a refugee        only organisation working on a full-
from the Nazis.                          time basis to promote the study and
  He left a 15 million fund to be       performance of Jewish music."
distributed to British charities in        Next month, the harmonica player,
gratitude for the refuge the country     Larry Adler, is scheduled to relaunch
had given him.                           the trust under its new title. at his
  According to Ms Auerbach, the          80th birthday party at the Royal
pledge had given the trust "a kick"      Festival Hall.

Music man hits the right note On tuneful China trip

By MICHELLE CONN
---------------------------------------  The lectures were all recorded and
  Jewish music could soon be strik-      translated into Chinese and will be
ing a chord with millions of Chinese,    published in China.
thanks to British musicologist Alex-       "The Chinese are very keen to
ander Knapp.                             create links with the West and the
  Mr Knapp has just returned from a      outside world and they want people
two-week lecture series in Beijing       to visit them," Mr Knapp said.
and this week told the JC how stu-         He added that the students and
dents and professors at the city's       academics had "expressed a great
Central Conservatory warmed to           affinity with Jewish culture."
haimishe sounds traditional and            In between lectures, Mr Knapp
modern.                                  found time to meet some of Beijing's
  "They were fascinated by the           Jewish community.
music and found it very beautiful.         "There are about 100 Chinese
One discussion session included a        Jews in Beijing and I managed to
sing-song lasting three-and-a-half       visit a Jewish family for a Chanucah
hours."                                  party, which was a delightful experi-
  Mr Knapp, the Joe Loss research        ence."
fellow in Jewish music at London's         Mr Knapp said he was very keen to
City University, gave six lectures on a  return to China to continue his
variety of subjects, including Jewish    research and maintain his links with
and Arabic music and the work of         the conservatory, which had proved
composer Ernest Bloch.                   an "exceptionally generous host."

If anyone is interested, and would like some more details, please let me know.

I will try to help.

--
David Lewin david (at) lewin(dot)demon(dot)co(dot)uk

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Topic No. 2