Yiddish Music in Germany

[Joel Rubin/Rita Ottens <simontov...>]

Yiddish Music in Germany/Jiddische Musik in Deutschland

For my PhD research on the history and reception of Yiddish Music in
Germany (with an emphasis on Berlin) at City University, London (Department
of Music), I would like to invite all musicians, singers, organisers,
journalists, etc. in the field of Yiddish music in Germany - including
performers from outside Germany who work or have worked there - to send me
their CDs, tapes, videos, promo material, articles, reviews, festival
programmes, impressions, etc. 

I would also be very interested in information about earlier activities and
personalities in the field of Yiddish music in Germany from the 1945
onward. 

Any newspaper clip is valuable to my research (especially if date, name and
location of paper and page number are known). 

I plan to interview a representative sample of musicians, especially those
living and/or working in Berlin. If you are willing to be interviewed for
this research, please contact me.

I will be attending a representative sample of performances. Please let me
know when and where you and your groups may be seen and heard. 

In addition to having carried out a research project on klezmer music since
1989 (first book publication due 1999), I am also the co-editor of the
Jewish Music Series at Schott Wergo Music Media (Mainz, Germany), the
three-part Klezmer-anthology Yikhes/Doyres/Shteygers (Trikont, Munich), and
the co-author of Kol Rino (The Voice of Jubilation), a set of three
teaching manuals on Jewish and Israeli Music for school music teachers
(Berlin School Ministry), as well as the award-winning documentary on the
Epstein Brothers, "A Tickle in the Heart" (Germany/Switz./USA 1996). Among
the six albums of the Jewish Music Series (newest CD "Hungry Hearts.
Classic Yiddish Clarinet Solos of the 1920s" due April 1998) is the first
ever released CD with the melodies from the collection of the
Ukrainian-Jewish ethnomusicologist Moyshe Beregovski). 

Originally coming from the fields of Jewish Studies and Comparative
Literature (Free University, Berlin; Hebrew University, Jerusalem), I have
given papers on my research on Yiddish music at the Free University in
Berlin (East European Studies Institute), University of Potsdam (Department
of Jewish Studies), the Second International Conference on Jewish Music
(1997) at City University London, the 12th World Congress of Jewish Studies
in Jerusalem in 1997 as well as at the upcoming conference in March 1998 at
the Music Department of the Johannes Gutenberg-Universitaet Mainz ("Jewish
Music and Musicians in the 20th Century"). The lecture at Free University
was published under the titleKlezmer-Forschung in Osteuropa: damals und
heute  (Klezmer Research in Eastern Europe: Then and Now), in Juden und
Antisemitismus im oestlichen Europa (Jews and Antisemitism in Eastern
Europe; East European Studies Institute of the Free University,
Berlin/Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1995.) A 25-page article ("'Akh vi
voyl un akh vi git s'iz tsu zayn a yid' (Oh how nice and oh how good it is
to be a Jew): The Myth of Yiddish Music and Its Political and Ideological
Function in Reunited Germany") will be published in the Proceedings of the
Second International Conference on Jewish Music, City University, London
(1998; in press). "Lomir weinen (Let us cry). Die Musik
sowjetisch-juedischer Einwanderer in Berlin, a paper on the music of the
Russian Jews in Berlin, a part of the lecture series "Musical Cultures of
Immigration Societies" will be published by the Institute for
Inter-Cultural Research and Education in Hanover (in preparation). 

Thanks in advance. 

Rita Ottens.
Bernburger Str. 18
D-10963 Berlin
Germany
Tel 49 30 261 74 32
Fax 49 30 261 34 27
simontov (at) compuserve(dot)com