RE: schmaltz, pandering and Klezmatics

[Trudi Goodman <goobietheg...>]

I live in Metro Boston.
Also check out THE WORKMAN'S CIRCLE IN BROOKLINE, they are great people and 
very accomodating.  Ask for Estelle(sp?)Ritchie.
Trudi

>From: parentheses <Sara(dot)Marcus (at) oberlin(dot)edu>
>Reply-To: jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
>To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
>Subject: RE: schmaltz, pandering and Klezmatics
>Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 11:09:00 -0400 (EDT)
>
>
>On Tue, 20 Jul 1999, Dick Rosenberg wrote:
>
> > I also think it's an interesting marketing problem. Where I leave, near
> > Boston, there is a city called Newton with a sizeable Jewish population.
> > The Newton Public Library has a small auditorium and has a free concert
> > series. There is always at least one concert featuring some local
> > Klezmer talent. The audience always seems to me to be not only over 60,
> > but over 70! It always surprises me that there are not more younger
> > people at these concerts. How do you reach them? (I think this is the
> > problem that Bert ran into)
>
>       I don't know what kind of advertising the library does (or the
>Cleveland Workmen's Circle, for that matter) but here's my suggestion:
>the local music scenes.  Flyers at rock clubs, jazz clubs, folk clubs,
>cafes where the kids hang out (Somerville, in your case, would be a
>great idea), college campuses, all the schools of music.  Contact
>college newspapers, musicians' newspapers, "alternative" papers like
>the Boston Phoenix.
>
>       Since we're talking about "how do we reach the youth?" I'll
>mention that my impression, based on considerable experience, is that
>the growth industry for klezmer among youth is in the set of youth who
>are interested in and open to all kinds of music.  Among these people
>there are lots of Jews, many of whom may feel alienated from a
>tradition that doesn't seem to speak to them.  The Klezmatics were my
>introduction to cultural Judaism, through which I've also started
>hollowing myself out a place in the Jewish religion.  That's powerful
>music, folks.
>
>       Relevantly, Anthony Tommasini had a depressingly ignorant
>review in the NY Times a couple weeks ago, about a Stravinsky festival
>in San Francisco.  He spoke of symphony orchestras' declining cachet
>among the under-30s, a trend every classical-music pundit laments.
>Then he MARVELED at the crowd of young folk at this Stravinsky show.
>How could it be, he wondered, that you can't pay most 25-year-olds to
>go see Mozart's Jupiter symphony performed, but they'll shell out
>bucks for newmusic?  Michael Tilsen Thomas, AT wrote astoundedly, has
>"managed to *convince* young people" that 20th century music is worth
>listening to.  HELLO???  You don't *have* to convince young people to
>listen to new things!  It's the old things we've heard a hundred times
>that tend to bore us.
>
>       If klezmer survives only as a regurgitation of century-old
>tunes (no matter how creative and talented that regurgitation may be)
>we will suffer a great loss -- both of the music that might have been,
>and the youth it might have a)inspired, and b)brought to a fertile
>interaction with Jewish culture.
>
>Love,
>Sara Marcus
>
>


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