"Crossing the Shadows (Ariber di shotns) concert in NYC

[Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky <reyzl...>]

The National Yiddish Book Center proudly presents 

      Josh Waletzky - vocals, piano
      Deborah Strauss - violin
      Jeff Warschauer - mandolin, guitar, vocals

in a program entitled "Crossing the Shadows (ARIBER DI SHOTNS)" - 
the first-ever concert of original Yiddish songs and melodies 
written by an American-born composer/lyricist, Josh Waletzky.

PLACE: Temple Israel
       112 East 75th Street (between Park and Lexington)
       New York, NY  10021

DATE:  Sunday, June 14, 1998

TIME:  7:30 pm 


With Greetings and Book Center News By Aaron Lansky


TICKETS are $18 (proceeds will go to support The National Yiddish 
Book Center) and can be reserved by writing Temple Israel or 
calling them at 212 249-5000 or sending an email message 
to jslewis (at) juno(dot)com  Checks should be made out to "The National 
Yiddish Book Center."

The first performance of this program took place in Dec. 1997 at HUC.


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CROSSING THE SHADOWS (ARIBER DI SHOTNS) is a concert of original 
Yiddish songs and melodies, with words and music by Josh Waletzky. 
It is the first concert program ever of new Yiddish music written
entirely by an American-born composer/lyricist.  Josh is joined 
by colleagues Jeff Warschauer and Deborah Strauss in a contemporary 
performance style that brings together Yiddish song and instrumental 
traditions.  The texts spring from both deeply personal and communal 
concerns, ranging from love songs and lullaby to mixed feelings over 
the re-emergence of Jewish music in Europe and anguish over the 
peace prospects in Israel.  The moods are celebrative, contemplative, 
timely, timeless.



Program Background

Josh Waletzky is a film maker and a founder of the klezmer revival, 
who has been writing music in a traditional Jewish style since his 
early teens.  His settings of Yiddish texts were first recorded on 
"Vaserl", a record of new Yiddish music by young people issued in the 
late 1970s by Yugntruf.  Some of his compositions have been performed 
and recorded through the years all over the world.  As a documentary 
film director he has worked often with Eastern European Jewish themes, 
particularly in "Image Before My Eyes" and "Partisans of Vilna".  He 
has also specialized in directing documentaries on musical subjects, 
particularly opera (including "Pavarotti and the Italian Tenor" for 
PBS) and film music (his "Music for the Movies: Bernard Herrmann" was 
nominated for an Academy Award).  He "met" Deborah Strauss and Jeff 
Warschauer through his work as film editor of the Emmy Award-winning 
PBS special "Itzhak Perlman: In the Fiddler's House".  (Some months 
later he met them by happy coincidence on the streets of his native 
Brooklyn, which all three now call home.)  He was inspired by his work 
on "Fiddler's House" to renew his activity in Yiddish music, also 
writing, for the first time, original words with many of the melodies.  
The current collaboration brings together three artists with rich and 
divergent backgrounds in ensemble and solo performance and a common 
commitment to the strength and beauty of a living musical language.

Artist Biographies

Deborah Strauss (violin) is considered one of the finest practitioners
of traditional Jewish violin style today.  She is a member of the
Chicago Klezmer Ensemble and performs with Kurt Bjorling as a 
violin/tsimbl duo.   In addition, Deborah has worked with Brave Old 
World, Yiddish singer Adrienne Cooper, and with the Klezmer Conservatory 
Band.  In 1994 and 1995 she appeared as a soloist at the Festival of 
Jewish Culture in Cracow, Poland, and in 1996, performed and led 
workshops at the Amsterdam International Yiddish Festival.  Deborah is 
featured in the Emmy award-winning film, "Itzhak Perlman: In the
Fiddler's House" and appears on Kapelye's latest CD, "On the Air:
Old-Time Jewish American Radio".  Deborah teaches privately and at 
many Yiddish culture workshops, including KlezKamp, Buffalo on the Roof 
and KlezKanada.  She holds a B.M in violin performance from Rutgers 
University, and is completing her M.A. in ethnomusicology at the 
University of Chicago.

Josh Waletzky (vocals, piano) has taught Yiddish songs in many 
settings over the years, working with children and adults, amateurs 
and professionals.  Camp Boiberik, the Yiddish afternoon schools, YIVO 
and Columbia University's Yiddish Program, KlezKamp and the National 
Yiddish Book Center are his musical home town.  His father, Sholom, 
was the first of many wonderful teachers in the richness of Yiddish 
melody.  As a high school student he studied piano and theory at the 
Juilliard Preparatory Division, including a semester of composition 
with Peter Schickele.  He sang with the Yugntruf Ensemble, co-composing 
a Yiddish operetta with Zalmen Mlotek.  As he moved into film making, 
he continued his active interest in Yiddish music.  He composed an 
original score for his Yiddish-language film, "Dos Mazl", (based on a 
Yiddish folktale) at NYU Film School.  His now-classic film on pre-war 
Jewish Poland, "Image Before My Eyes", makes extensive and 
ground-breaking use of field recordings of klezmer and vocal music.  
He was one of the original members of Kapelye, a pioneering klezmer 
revival band, and can be heard on Kapelye's first recording, "Future 
and Past" (vocals, piano).  His film on Jewish resistance, "Partisans 
of Vilna", also makes critical use of Yiddish music.  He co-produced, 
arranged, and performed (vocals, piano) on the CD of the same name, 
which became the first Yiddish record to receive a Grammy 
nomination.  While he has continued to present occasional Yiddish song 
programs, ACROSS THE SHADOWS is his first major performance in a decade.

Jeff Warschauer (guitar, mandolin) is known internationally as one of 
the foremost exponents of the klezmer mandolin, as a unique innovator 
in the development of an authentic klezmer guitar style, and as an 
expressive Yiddish singer.  He has played and taught throughout the 
United States, Western Europe, Poland, the Czech Republic, the former 
Soviet Union, Australia and New Zealand.  He is a member of the 
Klezmer Conservatory Band, has performed with the Bolshoi Ballet, and 
has been composer, music director and/or featured instrumentalist for 
numerous theatrical productions, recordings and filmtracks.  His own 
group, the Jeff Warschauer Klezmer Ensemble, has performed on 
numerous occasions in the United States, as well as at international 
festivals in Poland and the Netherlands.  He also performs in duo and 
trio combinations with Dutch Yiddish singer Shura Lipovsky, and New 
York pianist Zalmen Mlotek.  He appears, both on-stage and in the pit, 
with the musical "Shlemiel the First", and appears in both the film and 
the CD entitled "Itzhak Perlman: In the Fiddler's House".  In 1986 he 
won the Amalgamated Bank Prize for Yiddish Studies at Oxford 
University's Summer Programme, and in 1995 returned to lecture on the 
history of klezmer music at the Oxford Institute for Yiddish Studies.  
He was awarded a 1990 Massachusetts Artist Fellowship for his klezmer 
mandolin and solo guitar work.  A graduate of the New England 
Conservatory of Music, Jeff has taught for ten years at the KlezKamp 
Yiddish Folk Arts Program.


To arrange for performance of "CROSSING THE SHADOWS", write to:  
    
           Josh Waletzky 
           419 Sterling Place 
           Brooklyn, New York  11238

Or by e-mail at:  reyzl (at) flash(dot)net

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