"New Yiddish Songs for the 21st Century"

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

PLEASE POST AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.  THE CONCERT IS THIS SUNDAY.

Thanks, 

Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky

---------------------------------------------------------------


>Sunday, March 17, 3:00 pm
>
>            New Yiddish Songs for the 21st Century

>            A major force in the Klezmer revival,
>            Joshua Waletzky presents a riveting >            program of 
> original music 
and Yiddish >            songs, with themes ranging from love >            to 
war.
 
Featuring violinist Deborah >            Strauss and guitarist/mandolinist Jeff
>            Warschauer of the celebrated >            Boston-based Klezmer 
> Conservatory
>            Band, with a special appearance by Bay Area choruses.
>
>            Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley, CA (5 min from BART 
> station)

>            RESERVED SEATING $22 ($20 BRJCC members, seniors, >            
> students)
$3 more for all seats at the door.  JMF Box Office at 925-866-9559. >

   T>            his concert is part of 17th ANNUAL JEWISH MUSIC FESTIVAL, 
   the largest festival of Jewish music in Northern California, 
   presented by the Berkeley-Richmond Jewish Community Center.  
   The festival is an expanded two-week celebration of klezmer, 
   Yiddish, Sephardic, classical and world music.
   March 9 - 24, 2002


About the CROSSING THE SHADOWS program and CD:

With CROSSING THE SHADOWS (Ariber di shotns), Grammy-nominated musician 
Joshua Waletzky has again brought a groundbreaking work to the 
Yiddish/klezmer scene.  Waletzky's native command of both literary and 
musical Yiddish languages puts him in a class by himself as an 
American-born singer-songwriter creating a substantial body of new 
Yiddish songs for our times.  CROSSING THE SHADOWS celebrates the 
passion and the expressive richness of Yiddish song, and brings a 
venerable music living and breathing into a new century.

The CD of CROSSING THE SHADOWS (available at www.crossingtheshadows.com), 
which has been named "the best album of 2001" by Ari Davidow on his 
Klezmershack website, features Waletzky (lead voice, piano), and two 
premiere players in the klezmer/Yiddish revival: Deborah Strauss (violin, 
voice), and Jeff Warschauer (mandolin, guitar, voice percussion).  
CROSSING THE SHADOWS is already being hailed as a landmark.  Davidow 
writes: "This is the album of the year. It is so wonderful to listen to, 
and so significant in terms of how it got there. In our house, we keep 
a couple of copies around in the vain hope that there is one available 
wherever we are and want to (again) listen to it. Waletzky, a founding 
member of Kapelye, is better known as an independent filmmaker ("Image 
Before My Eyes", "Partisans of Vilna", "Itzhak Perlman: In The Fiddler's 
House", etc.). Here he records his exquisite new Yiddish songs to 
traditional-feeling new music. His own piano playing, and the ensemble 
work with Jeff Warschauer and Deborah Strauss is amazing. There simply 
isn't anything to say about this album other than how good it is, how 
compellingly good it is."

Critic Seth Rogovoy (author of "The Essential Klezmer: A Music Lover's 
Guide to Jewish Roots and Soul") welcomes this "starkly intimate song 
cycle" as "truly wonderful, stirring, provocative, and a great step 
forward for Yiddish song."  He writes: "It's a tribute to Waletzky's 
talents as a writer and performer that the heavy weight of recent Jewish 
history is borne by his vivid poetry and his muscular melodies that 
straddle the nether region between folk and art song. The mood of the 
cycle varies from the klezmer-fueled celebration of "Tantsn kales 
(Brides are dancing)" to the poignant balladry of "Der nisnboym (The 
nut tree)" to the soulful ecstasy of "Shabes-koydesh (Holy Sabbath)". 
Waletzky, who has a parallel career as a filmmaker, composes with 
flair ­ even an instrumental like "Der tats (The cymbal)" is full of 
drama and dynamics, as are his piano playing and his earthy vocals. 
Strauss and Warschauer, two leading lights of the klezmer renaissance, 
lend their vocal harmonies and Old World instrumental flavor to 
Waletzky's Yiddish compositions.  If Stephen Sondheim wrote in the 
language and musical idiom of his forebears, he would be Joshua 
Waletzky." [Berkshire Jewish Voice]

George Robinson, culture critic for The Jewish Week, has followed 
CROSSING THE SHADOWS from its inaugural concert presentation in December, 
1997.  He gives it his highest (five-star) rating: "This CD began life 
as a song cycle I saw Waletzky perform a couple of years ago with the 
same backing -- Deborah Strauss on violin and Jeff Warschauer on mandolin 
and guitar -- to great effect.  I was struck at the time by the masterful 
way in which Waletzky adopted Yiddish song to a post-Holocaust Jewish 
world, recapitulating all of the musical themes of the great Yiddish 
folksongs while bringing them lyrically into a new, if considerably darker 
world.  Having the leisure to hear and rehear these songs on record, I am 
more impressed than ever by both the writing and the performances, which 
are heartfelt and adroit.  A deeply moving album (and I'd love to be 
able to sing Waletzky's "Shabes-koydesh" in my shul!). ["The Jewish Week"]

Leading authority on Yiddish song Chana Mlotek praises CROSSING THE 
SHADOWS as "A beautiful CD!  A welcome addition to the Yiddish art song 
treasury.  Joshua Waletzky, a filmmaker of note, is also a seasoned and
talented Yiddish poet and composer.  In this most recent CD, he has 
created moving tone poems that recall  the range of the Yiddish folksong 
and the poetry of Moishe Kulbak and Itsik Manger."

And Yiddish literature professor David G. Roskies greets CROSSING THE 
SHADOWS as "A magnificent new album, in which Waletzky reinvents the 
entire repertoire of Ashkenazic music:  zmires for the Sabbath and 
niggunim-without-words; freylekhs and wedding songs; lullabies, laments, 
and love songs.  ...Listen to the way he mixes and matches Hebrew and 
Yiddish, hasidic fervor and a passion for peace, the mandolin and 
modernity.  Capped by a lyrical, at times, haunting, performance style, 
Josh Waletzky's CD will become a classic of the American-Jewish folk 
revival."


For more information and to buy the CD, go to www.crossingtheshadows.com.

For more reviews and articles, click on the following: 

Ari Davidow names "Crossing The Shadows" album of the year 2001:
<http://www.klezmershack.com/articles/davidow/2001_yearsbest.html#waletzky>

George Robinson's article voting "Crossing the Shadows" among the 
best albums of the year 2001 in an article "The Best Albums of the 
Year -- Just in time for Hanukah" 
<http://www.klezmershack.com/articles/robinson/011207.sounds.html>

Dena Ressler's article on klezmershack
"Yidish Vokh '01 and Josh Waletzky's new "Crossing the Shadows":
di alte heym cordially meets the New World in the Berkshires and beyond"
<http://www.klezmershack.com/articles/ressler/2001.waletzky.yiddishvokh.html>

Ari Davidow's original review of Crossing the Shadows
<http://www.klezmershack.com/articles/davidow/2001_weblogs.html#waletzky>

An article about Josh Waletzky in the Jewish Bulletin of Northern 
California (March 8, 2002) "Klezmer is nurturing a Yiddish revival, 
says musician", by Joshua Brandt 
<http://www.jewishsf.com/bk020308/sup02.shtml>

Heiko Lehmann's review (German language):
<http://www.klezmer.de/Platten/P_Tradition/T_Waletzky/t_waletzky.html>

For more about Josh Waletzky:
<http://www.klezmershack.com/klezcontacts.html#waletzky>




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