Re: new jewish music

[HNetsky <HNetsky...>]

I think of New Jewish Music (a term that was perhaps coined by Alan Bern?) as 
music that uses a "Jewish" cultural or musical base as a point of departure.  
This sort of thing has really been going on for a long time - the American 
incarnation goes at least as far back as the 1920s with "Lena From 
Palesteena" as far as I'm concerned.  As a teacher of Multicultural Music and 
Contemporary Improvisation since 1978, it was always the mainstay of my 
ensembles and classes at New England Conservatory, where a fair number of the 
current movers and shakers got their start (but was never the purpose of the 
KCB, which has always been a klezmer and Yiddish repertory ensemble).  Frank 
London writes eloquently on this point in Judaism185/vol 47/#1).  The pretext 
for everything in our "Third Stream" (now "Contemporary Improvisation") 
classes and ensembles was that music was music and any culture can be a point 
of departure, whatever your level of immersion in it.
Approval or rejection is, as always, at the discretion of the audience.   
-Hankus 

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