Central Asian Jewish Music

[meydele <meydele...>]

Last night, the Skirball Cultural Center sponsored a concert by Ilyas Malayev 
and Ensemble 
Maqam, including Lyuba Shamayeva and Tamara Kataeva, entitled "Music and Dance 
of Central Asia 
and the Jews of Bukhara, Uzbekistan" as the first in its Sounds of the Silk 
Road 4-concert 
series.  I remember hearing an NPR piece about Malayev and reading about him in 
various 
publications, so I was quite eager to actually see this show.  I found it quite 
fascinating on 
several levels.

The first was musically.  The quality of musicianship was quite high.  The 
ensemble consisted of 
Malayev on tar, Israel Ibragimov on robab, Matatiya Barayev on doire and Boris 
Yusupov on 
accordion, as well as the 2 women singing and dancing.  All of the ensemble, 
with the exception 
of the doire (percussion) player, also sang. 

It was also interesting culturally/sociologically.  They performed a grab-bag 
of material 
ranging from Malayev's highly structured Shas Maqam compositions to popular 
composed songs from 
film scores in Farsi to arrangements of folk songs in Tajik. Even a composed 
song in Armenian. 
The costumes were very much in what I think of as the "Soviet folk performance" 
mold - very 
lush, colorful interpretations of traditional dress.   Lots of gold fabric, 
brightly embroidered 
velvet coats, etc. In short, a fairly slick, "pop" flavored concert, which 
jibes with the 
popular star status of several of the performers in Central Asia.   Yet, 
because the music is so 
unfamiliar, informative. Also interesting was the audience.  I am constantly 
amazed at how many 
different ethnic audiences can be found in LA, even though I know how 
ethnically diverse the 
city is, and how infrequently they overlap!  Not the usual "Jewish music crowd" 
at all.

Which brings me to the question of lyrics.  I've attended several concerts 
recently here in LA 
where the songs were sung in non-European languages that only a minority of the 
audience 
understood.  Last night, there were some songs that had the Farsi-speakers 
laughing hard.  A 
very brief synopsis of the subject was provided before the funniest.  Most of 
the songs were 
performed without any attempt to provide translation or context. I wondered 
what they were 
about.  Not knowing anything about the lyrics makes it a different listening 
experience than 
that of someone who understands what is sung.  (Does this relate to the 
discussion about the 
Klezmatics concert in Ohio from a while back?)  If we provide lyrics and 
translations in the 
program, we run into a few problems: lack of performance flexibility for the 
performers, 
sometimes lack of good translations, more expensive programs, an audience 
that's looking at 
their laps and not the stage, noisy paper-rustling, etc.  I am intrigued by the 
technological 
solutions to this problem being explored in the opera world (i.e.supertitles, 
screens on seat 
backs, etc.), but there's the expense.  Also, Adrienne Cooper's solution of 
incorporating 
English verses into the Yiddish, or translating immediately before the song is 
an interesting 
response to the problem.

How do those of us who sing in Yiddish/Hebrew/Ladino, etc. in smaller than 
stadium venues handle 
this?    

Shira Lerner

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