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Kol Nidre is a Hebrew and Aramaic declaration which is recited in the synagogue before the beginning of the evening service on the night of Yom Kippur. Strictly speaking, it is not a prayer, even though it is commonly spoken of as if it were a prayer. This declaration and its ceremonial accompaniment have been charged with emotional undertones since the medieval period, creating a dramatic introduction to Yom Kippur on what is often dubbed "Kol Nidrei night", with the entire Yom Kippur evening service popularly called Kol Nidrei.
Klezmer is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. The essential elements of the tradition include dance tunes, ritual melodies, and virtuosic improvisations played for listening; these would have been played at weddings and other social functions. The musical genre incorporated elements of many other musical genres including Ottoman music, Baroque music, German and Slavic folk dances, and religious Jewish music. As the music arrived in the United States, it lost some of its traditional ritual elements and adopted elements of American big band and popular music. Among the European-born klezmers who popularized the genre in the United States in the 1910s and 1920s were Dave Tarras and Naftule Brandwein; they were followed by American-born musicians such as Max Epstein, Sid Beckerman and Ray Musiker.
Moishe Oysher was an American cantor, recording artist, and film and Yiddish theatre actor. During the 1940s and 1950s he was one of the top Hazzans and his recordings continue to be appreciated due to his rich, powerful voice and creative arrangements.
Yiddish song is a general description of several genres of music sung in Yiddish which includes songs of Yiddish theatre, Klezmer songs, and "Yiddish art song" after the model of the German Lied and French mélodie.
David Krakauer is an American clarinetist who performs klezmer, jazz, classical music, and avant-garde improvisation.
Since Biblical times, music has held an important role in many Jews' lives. Jewish music has been influenced by surrounding Gentile traditions and Jewish sources preserved over time. Jewish musical contributions on the other hand tend to reflect the cultures of the countries in which Jews live, the most notable examples being classical and popular music in the United States and Europe. However, other music is unique to particular Jewish communities, such as klezmer of Eastern Europe.
Jewish music is the music and melodies of the Jewish people. There exist both traditions of religious music, as sung at the synagogue and domestic prayers, and of secular music, such as klezmer. While some elements of Jewish music may originate in biblical times, differences of rhythm and sound can be found among later Jewish communities that have been musically influenced by location. In the nineteenth century, religious reform led to composition of ecclesiastic music in the styles of classical music. At the same period, academics began to treat the topic in the light of ethnomusicology. Edwin Seroussi has written, "What is known as 'Jewish music' today is thus the result of complex historical processes". A number of modern Jewish composers have been aware of and influenced by the different traditions of Jewish music.
For the purposes of this article, “contemporary” refers to the period from 1967 to the present day, “Jewish” refers to the various streams and traits of Judaism practiced. Many Orthodox Jews use the term “religious” to refer to a strict adherence to Jewish law. For the purposes of this article, “religious” refers to the content and context of the music itself: liturgical or implicit references to the divine.
Maurice Goldman (1910–1984) was an internationally known composer and conductor. Goldman’s compositions and arrangements are largely in the areas of Yiddish and Hebraic music. However, like his mentors, Ernest Bloch and Aaron Copland, Goldman’s music breaks the boundaries of traditional Jewish melodies, employing chordal and harmonic elements found in classical, jazz, and American folk music.
Benzion Miller is a cantor, schochet and mohel (circumciser), as was his father, Aaron Daniel Miller. He was born in a displaced persons camp in Fernwald, Germany.
The New Klezmer Quintet is a traditional klezmer band originally from the Washington, D.C. area. The group is also a neo-klezmer ensemble performing klezmer music while incorporating elements of modern Israeli folk music, ladino, jazz, Swing music, Latin music, and rock and roll styles. The band was formed in 2001 at the Lansing Michigan Jazz Festival when a group of independent conservatory trained professional musicians with their own bands came together to jam. The New Klezmer Quintet has an older sister band called The Kol Haruach Orchestra which plays private events, while the main band plays strictly concert venues. Kol Haruach means voice of the spirit which embodies the groups improvisational and audience pleasing performance style.
Marcel Lang was a Swiss chazan (cantor) and singer (tenor).
Herman Berlinski was a German-born American composer, organist, pianist, musicologist and choir conductor.
Angela Warnick Buchdahl is an American rabbi. She was the first East Asian-American to be ordained as a rabbi, and the first East Asian-American to be ordained as a hazzan (cantor). In 2011 she was named by Newsweek and The Daily Beast as one of America's "Most Influential Rabbis", and in 2012 by The Daily Beast as one of America's "Top 50 Rabbis". Buchdahl was recognized as one of the top five in The Forward's 2014 "Forward Fifty", a list of American Jews who had the most impact on the national scene in the previous year.
Itzchok Reev "Ray" Smolover was an American vocal pedagogist, voice teacher, tenor, opera librettist, opera director, and hazzan.
Elizabeth Schwartz is an American vocalist, concentrating on klezmer music and the Romanian Yiddish dialect. She primarily records with her husband Yale Strom and Hot Pstromi but has collaborated in performance and recordings with notable musicians from the jazz and folk music worlds, notably Muzsikas, Damian Draghici, Alicia Svigals, Salman Ahmad, Marta Sebestyen and others. The subject of Romanian filmmaker Radu Gabrea's documentary film, Searching for Schwartz (2007), she was also featured in his previous documentaries "Goldfadn's Legacy" and "Romania, Romania". She also recorded music for the soundtrack of L'Chayim, Comrade Stalin!, a documentary film directed by her husband and frequent collaborator Strom.
Louis "Leibele" Waldman was a Jewish cantor (“chazzan”), composer and actor, the only American born cantor who may be considered as belonging to the great cantors of the so-called "golden age of jewish cantorial music".
Jacob Weinberg was a Russian-born American Jewish composer and pianist who composed over 135 works for piano and other instruments. He was one of the founders of the Jewish National Conservatory in Jerusalem before immigrating to the U.S. where he became "an influential voice in the promotion of American Jewish music" from the 1940s until his death.
Neil W. Levin is a Professor Emeritus of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and since 1993 has served as the Artistic Director of the Milken Archive of Jewish Music.
Ben Zion Shenker (1925–2016) was a world-renowned American Hasidic composer and hazzan (cantor), associated with the Modzitz hasidic dynasty. Shenker was born in the heyday of the American hazzan. He became interested in the art as a child, and was performing on radio by his early teens. Soon after, he became close to Rabbi Shaul Taub, the Holocaust-surviving Modzitz Grand Rabbi, who was known for his mystical Hasidic compositions. He dedicated much of his life to recording and publishing the large stock of pre-war Modzitz songs, as well as Taub's post-war work. Shenker created a music label, Neginah, for the purpose of recording those songs, and himself became a composer of hundreds Modzitz moded songs.
References
- ↑ "About".
- ↑ Teitelbaum, Shell (2003-10-06). "A $17-Million Musical Revival". Jerusalem Report. p. 37. Retrieved 2011-01-25.
- ↑ "The Jewish Theological Seminary - Faculty". Archived from the original on 2010-11-24. Retrieved 2010-09-15. Neil W. Levin Bio
- ↑ "Milken Archive of American Jewish Music in Series and Sets. Enjoy Milken Archive of American Jewish Music Music in classical CDS".
- ↑ "Classical Music News from NAXOS.COM". www.naxos.com.
- ↑ "Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way (2010)".
- ↑ "18 Voices Sing Kol Nidre".
- ↑ "NPR Media Player". NPR . Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
- ↑ "Celebrating Jewish Music in America". NPR .
