David Broza at 92nd St. Y

Saturday eve. Dec. 24, 8pm, $50.
92nd Street Y, NYC.

Hélène Engel at AMJ upcoming Fall concert

Michel Borzykowski of AMJ writes: "J'ai le plaisir de vous annoncer deux concerts de chants yiddish, judéo-espagnols, hébreux et de musique klezmer avec: Hélène Engel & 'Hotegezugt'

dimanche 30 octobre à 10h30 à l'Auberge du Prieur de Romainmôtier (Vaud).
Info et réservations: tél 0(041)22 366 01 53.
brunch gastronomique et concert: 55.-

et

dimanche 6 novembre à 17h à la Cité Bleue, 46 Av.Miremont, 1206 Genève
Organisation: les Amis de la Musique Juive www.amj.ch.
Info et réservations: amj@amj.ch tel: 0(041)22.734.71.93
entrée: 28.- / AVS, chômeurs, étudiants... 18.-
Réduction supplémentaire de 5.- aux membres AMJ

Homepage AMJ: http://www.amj.ch Geneva klezmer page: http://borzykowski.users.ch

Blues Genes, the Blues from Israel

Miri Goldschlag sings Blues/Jazz standards and originals in English and Hebrew with Jean-Yves Slon (guitar, slide guitar, harmonica) in the Tel Aviv area. They now have a website with some demo clips at www.Bluegenes.biz
Contact for engagements at: p.o.b. 2058 - Savyon 56530 - ISRAEL
or email at jyslon@013.net.il

Balkan Beat Box with OI VA VOI

Thursday 3rd November 8pm
@ DASH 05 Scala, 275 Pentonville Road, Kings Cross, London N1 9NL
All tickets £10 – online www.dasharts.org.uk
or 08700 600 100.
TICKETS ARE SELLING FAST – BOOK NOW!

An electric circus of beats and live music from around the Mediterranean. Balkan Beat Box bring electronic sounds and samples mixed with wild live music from North Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans and Eastern Europe. It combines an international 8-piece house band with guest slots from over 15 UK and visiting musicians. Surrounding the audience and using every inch of Scala, the night will feature a live set from Oi Va Voi, London’s own bastard Balkan klezmer electro-pop rock band. Also appearing are artists from the Bollywood Brass Band, London Bulgarian Choir, Fantazia, belly dancers and DJS Max Reinhardt and Lemez Lovas.
Produced by Dash Arts in co-production with YaD Arts. This is a part of DASH 05 – a new season of art, music, theatre and visual art across London…. Check the DASH website www.dasharts.org.uk

"A Little Jewish Night Music" in LA

Please join The Jewish Music Commission of Los Angeles for the World Premiere performance of "The Shul in My Right Mind". This piece, commissioned by JMCLA, was composed by Dr. Michael Isaacson. In addition, the work of two other well-known Los Angeles Jewish Composers, Aminadav Aloni and Robert Strassburg, will also be performed.
Date: Tuesday, 11/29/2005
Start Time: 7:30 PM
Location: Valley Beth Shalom
Address: 15739 Ventura Blvd., Encino 91436
Ticket Info: Free to the Community
JMCLA Tel: 818.907.7194

The evening concert will feature performances by the outstanding Los Angeles-based Armadillo String Quartet (Barry Socher and Steve Scharf, violin, Ray Tischer, viola and Armen Ksajikian, cello) with guest artists Guy Hallman, piano and Zinovy Goro, clarinet.

Visit www.jmcla.org for more information.

Music of the Mystics in the Ottoman Empire

Walter Zev Feldman, ethnomusicologist and artistic director, Elena Frangakis-Syrett and Daniel Goffman in Shared Sacred Space. Sunday, Nov. 6, 9:30am, $30 (lecture).
Concerts: Thursdays, Nov. 17 and Dec. 8 and Jan. 26, 8pm, $30 each at the 92nd street Y, NYC. Shared Sacred Space celebrates historical periods and regions in which the art, music and ideas of different cultures and religions have not only co-existed, but have flourished side by side and yiedled rich, cross-cultural material. The Ottoman Empire in the 17th and 18th centuries is one of those societies and it is the focus of this season's Shared Sacred Space series. http://www.92y.org/

The series opens on Thursday, Nov. 17 with "Sabbatian Mysticism and Jewish Composers of the Ottoman Court", featuring the Istanbul based Bezmara Ensemble. Fikret Karakaya, music director of the ensemble, is the force behind the group's dedication to reviving long forgotten compositions and performing them on instruments they fashioned based on miniature paintings and written sources describing the ancient originals. the concert features 17the century Sufi hymns by Niyazi MISRI, an important Muslim mystic who was also a friend of the Jewish mystic and messianic figure Sabbatai Sevi (1626-1676), who eventually embraced Islam and is considered a fascinating, but enigmatic, figure in Jewish history. The concert also features works by Tanburi Isak Fresco (1745-1814), the greatest of the Ottoman Sephardi (Jewish) composers. The group's 1999 CD "Splendours of Topkapi" was released on the French label Opus 111.

Thursday Dec. 8, another Istanbul based group, the Lalezar Ensemble, Reha Sagbas, music director, presents "Music of the Mevlevi Dervishes". In 2001 the Lalezar ensemble released a four volume recording of Ottoman muisc (The Sultan Composers, Music of the Dancing Boys, Minority Composers, and Ottoman Suite) on the Turkish Traditional Crossroads label, with extensive notes written by Walter Zev Feldman. the Mevlevi Tradition is a Sufi, or mystical Islamic tradition that traces its roots to the great 13th century Sufi mystic and poet, Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi. the music of the Mevlvi, or Whirling Dervishes, was hugely influential throughout the Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious and cultural communities of the Ottoman Empire, especially among the educated urban elite. The Mevlevi believed hat music iteslef was a spiritual discipline that reached beyond religious distinctions. For this reason, the Mevlevi lodges (cobination residences and gathering places) functioned as conservatories where Greek, Armenian, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish musicians were all welcomed. The Music of the Mevlevi Dervishes has been sustained for more than 600 years. Reha Sagbas, a leading authority on the music of the Mevlevi, leads the singers and the instrumentalists of the Lalezar Ensemble in both secular and religious works by Ismail Ded Efendi (d. 1846) , the most prominent cmposer of this tradition. The religious work featured is a large-scale setting of the ayin, a musical ceremony unique to the Mevlevi that was performed as part of their spiritual practice. The music of the 19th century Mevlevi ayin represents the height of the compositional development of Ottoman Turkish music. On the one hand, its ancient structure and form varies little from the medieval Persian and Turkish motets on which it is based, but its melodies and harmonies and significantly more modern.

On Thursday January 26, the series concludes with "Sacred Music of the Ottoman Jews and Greeks: The Maftirim and the Psalters". Beginning in the 17th century, a group of elite, urban Jewish composers and cantors, known as maftirim, composed original choral settings of mystical Hebrew texts in the style of Ottoman (secular) court music of the time, with some Mevlevi influence as well. The Lst of the great composers in this 400 year old tradition was Moshe Cordova who was born in Edirne, Turkey, in 1881 and died in Tel Aviv in 1967. In this concert, Cordova's music is performed by students of the composer's foremost living disciple, Cantor Rafael Yair Elnadav, a resident of Brooklyn, NY. Also performing is a young Israeli choir, the Israel Maftirim Ensemble of Jerusalem, which specialies in Middle Eastern art music, including Cordova's work. The ensemble draws on material from a collection of Cordova's manuscripts recently relocated among his heirs in Israel. the members of the choir, mostly of Middle Eastern (Iraqi or Libyan) descent, represent a bridge between the older generation of Middle Eastern art musicians and the next generation of Israel players and composers.

Kurt Weill in America

92nd Street "Y" Lyrics and Lyricists, opens the 2005-2006 season with "Kurt Weill in America". Andrea Marcovicci, Artistic Director. Shelly markham, Music Director and Piano. Anna Bergamn, Klea Blackhurst, Barbara Brussell, Mark Coffin, Chuck Cooper, Jeff Harnar and Maude Maggart. Saturday Nov. 12, at 8pm. Seats $55 and $45. Sunday Nov. 13 at 3pm and at 8pm. Seats $55 and $45 and Monday, Nov. 14 at 3pm and 8pm, with seats $55 and $45. The tribute to Kurt Weill (1990-1950) and the American lyricists who collaborated with him. Suscription to the entire series are available. For tickets: www.92Y.org/Lyrics or 212-415-5500.

Before Kurt Weill fled Nazi Germany for Paris in March, 1993, he had compsed a dozen works for the musical theater. Early in his career, Weill said "I need poetry to set my imagination in motion," and he established a lifelong habit of collaborating with only the most talented lyricists. In Germany his tow most famous partners were the playwrights Georg Kaiser and Bertolt Brecht. In America, he teamed up with great American lyricists and poets like Alan Jay Lerner, Ira Gershwin, Ogden Nash, Langston Hughes, and Maxwell Anderson. In the L&L show, Andrea Marcovicci follows the musical life of Kurt Weill in America to explore the work of several influential American lyricists in context of their work with this singular composer. The songs--sweeping romatic melodies, jaunty comic tunes and stately anthems,--reveal how Weill's music influenced his lyricist-collaborators. But they also show Weill himself adapting to his new country, absorbing influences from his American colleagues and enjoying the newfound artistic freedom that America offered.

Weill collaborated with giants of American song like Ira Gershwin, as in the Broadway operetta The Firebrand of Florence (1944) and The Lady in the Dark (1940). He worked with Alan Jay Lerner on the relatively obscrue 1948 Broadway vaudeville show Love Life which features the same characteristic wit and whimsy as Lerner's best-known work, My Fair Lady.

But Weill also worked with lyricists who were primarily playwrights and poets--writers who worked as lyricists only in their collaborations with Kurt Weill. Pulitzer prize winning North Carolina playwright Paul Green (1894-1981), who was known for his portrayal of Southern American folk life, was Weill's first American collaboratr; the project was Johnny Johnson (1936), the offbeat story of a peace-loving soldier in World War I. With playwright and sometime lyricist Maxwell Anderson (1888-1959), Weill wrote Knickerbocker Holiday (1938), which starred Walter Huston in the Broadway production and featured the hit songs "It Never Was You" and "September Song". (Anderson wrote both narrative plays and verse dramas, including Winterset, which won the 1935 New York Drama Critics Circle Award.) Anderson and Weill also started work on a musical version of Huckleberry Finn, but weill completed only five songs before his death in 1950. These songs were performed in public for the first time at the 92nd Street Y under the direction of L&L founder Maurice Levine, in a Kurt Weill tribute concert on March 2, 1952. The great American poety Langston Hughes (1902-1967) wrote the lyrics--with Elmer Rice-- for Weill's 1947 opera Street Scene, which was based on Rice's Pulitzer-Prize winning play. Another great American poety and journalist, Ogden Nash (1902-1971), collaborated with Weill to write lyrics to the 1943 Broadway hit, One Touch of Venus.

Music director and pianist Shelly Markham is an arranger, music director, pianist and longtime colleague of Andrea Marcovicci. He produced four recordings for Marcovicci, including her latest featuring the songs of Fred Astaire. He arranged and conducted her Cole Porter evening, which toured nationally and was produced at the Liceu Opera House in Barcelona. The current off-Broadway show Naked Boys Singing features Markham's songs, and his latest show, Too Old for the Chorus is currently playing at San Diego's Theater in Old Town. He has worked with leading Broadway and cabaret performers and has enjoyed a long and successful collaboration as a composer with poet and author Judith Viorst (Love and Shrimp; Alexander & The Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day; and Alexander Who's Not Not Not Not Not Not Going to Move).

THE RETURN @ DASH

Saturday 29th October 7.30pm – 1 am
THE RETURN @ DASH
291 Gallery, 291 Hackney Road, London, E2 8NA
FREE
A cabaret of live music, art and performance curated by Wired Women and Chicks on Speed’s Anat Ben-David. An irreverent blurring of high and love, art and entertainment, homage and parody, and re-appropriation that will sweep the 291 off its feet. Artists include the Spinster Sisters from Berlin, Polyanna Frank from Israel and Marisa Carnesky from the UK.

Curated by Anat Ben-David.
Produced by Dash Arts in co-production with YaD Arts and 291 Gallery. This is a part of DASH 05 – a new season of art, music, theatre and visual art across London…. Check the DASH website www.dasharts.org.uk

"Purimshpil" guidebook book published

A book "Purimshpil. Scenario for work at Klezfest in Ukraine, 2005" (Kiev: The Center of Jewish Education in Ukraine. Jewish Music Department, 2005) was published for the recent "Klezfest in Ukraine, 2005" event. The book has been prepared using Moisey Beregovsky's materials from his "Jewish folk musical theatrical performances" (Kiev, Institute of Judaic Library, Publisher "Duh I Litera", 2001). The book was released for the use of musicians and teachers in concert work and education. The Purimshpil was directed by Alina Ivakh, scenario composed by Eugenia Lopatnik, music by Polina Shepherd and traditional. Klezfest 2005 website (in Russian)klezmer.com.ua/events/info10_1.php

Brave Old World to perform "Songs of the Lodz Ghetto" in San Francisco

Song of the Lodz Ghetto
In Yiddish, with English Supertitles
Saturday, October 15, 8:00 pm
JCCSF, 3200 California St. at Presidio Ave.
Tickets: Members $20 | Public $25 | Students $15
Box Office: (415) 292-1233
Box Office hours: Monday - Friday, 12:00 pm - 7:00 pm; Saturday, 12:00 pm - 5:00 pm.
Click here to purchase tickets online.

The Sydney Jewish Choral Society to celebrate 20th anniversary

The Sydney Jewish Choral Society celebrates its 20th anniversary next year, 2006. Under the direction of Rose Grausman, this mixed choir performs a very wide range of music, including classical, opera, jazz and musicals, as well as popular and folk music from all over the world. The S.J.C.S. regularly performs Yiddish, Ladino and Hebrew folk music, Hebrew liturgical settings, and stunning Hebrew musical settings by composers from Rossi in the 16th century through Kurt Weil and Leonard Bernstein in the 20th, and has given premieres of hitherto unpublished choral works by Jewish composers.

A non-profit organisation, the S.J.C.S. performs regularly in concerts which support Jewish and general charities and gives free performances at Jewish retirement homes and activity centres.

Throughout 2006, the Sydney Jewish Choral Society will be performing several major concerts in Sydney. In preparation for this substantial year of activity, new members are being actively sought. Musical training, while obviously an advantage, is not a prerequisite for membership.

Enquiries regarding membership or performances can be directed to Anne at anne_lives@hotmail.com

"Asefa" to appear in Malden

The First Church in Malden Concert Series presents "Asefa" performing "Sacred Time, Sacred Sound: Music of the Sabbath."
The Brooklyn-based trio "Asefa" performs music of the Jewish diaspora, including traditional music of North Africa and Eastern Europe and contemporary American and Israeli music. Their astonishing multi-instrumental spectacle, including vocals, horn, oud, saxophone, clarinet, bombard, upright bass, and hand percussion, is a "must hear" for all ages.
The concert is Sunday, November 6th at 2:00 pm

The First Church in Malden, Congregational
184 Pleasant Street
Malden, MA 02148
(781) 324-3733

www.uccwebsites.net/firstchurchinmaldenma.html
$10 donation

"A Cantor’s Tale" film at Boston Jewish Film Festival

Sunday, November 6
12:00 pm
A Cantor’s Tale
Coolidge Corner Theatre
http://www.bjff.org/festival/The Boston Jewish Film Festival features a film about Cantor Jacob Mendelson with original music by Frank London. http://www.jewishvideo.com/cantorstale.htm

In director Erik Greenberg Anjou’s exhilarating documentary tribute to Chazzanut, the cantorial art, Jacob (Jack) Mendelson, a cantor with a personality as big as his voice, takes Eric and the viewer on a guided tour of his Boro Park neighborhood, where, when Jack was a boy, cantors reigned supreme and music was the air he breathed. Show Times 12:00 pm Sunday, November 6, Coolidge Corner Theatre (Purchase tickets)
Sponsored by: Tufts University College of Arts & Sciences, Tufts Hillel, and Program in Judaic Studies
Visiting Artist: Director Erik Greenberg Anjou and Film Subject Cantor Jacob Mendelson
New England Premiere
Director: Erik Greenberg Anjou
USA, released 2005
Duration: 95 min., Video
Language: English

SYNOPSIS

"The tradition of Eastern European Jewish cantorial music is alive and well in modern America in no small part thanks to the efforts of Brooklyn-born Cantor Jacob Mendelson. "Jackie," as he is affectionately called by everyone, explores the American roots of "hazzanut"( Jewish liturgical music) while taking us on a musical voyage that spans the Atlantic, originating in his birthplace of Boro Park, Brooklyn and reaching all the way to Jerusalem. There’s music in the air, everywhere. The experience of hearing the world’s most renowned cantors in the synagogue was part of a lifestyle that provided American Jewry with a rich cultural heirloom. It is Cantor Mendelson’s mission to insure that this legacy is passed on to this and the next generation and generations to come, in a way that is both true to its origins and relevant to the modern world. This feature-length documentary provides a nostalgic journey through family, neighborhood, and tradition. It also treats us to appearances by renowned cantors and aficionados Joseph Malovany, Ben-Zion Miller, Alberto Mizrahi, Matthew Lazar, Neil Shicoff, Jackie Mason and Alan Dershowitz. A Cantor’s Tale is very much like "Levy’s Real Jewish Rye", you don’t have to be Jewish to love it! "

Jewish Music Forum

The Jewish Music Forum of the American Society of Jewish Music has a new website. http://www.jewishmusicforum.org/ . The website includes the schedule of this year's upcoming lectures as well as information about location, and times. The website also has contact information about the organization and last year's program.

Klezmer Workshop with Jeff Warschauer

Free Open House Tuesday, November 1, 2005 from 7-9 PM
Followed by a 5-week session - Tuesdays - November 8, 15, 22, 29 and December 6
Hands-On Workshop
*Study with an internationally recognized master instructor
*Learn tunes from the diverse klezmer tradition
*Develop tools for improvisation
*Guest instructors from the cutting edge of the contemporary klezmer scene
*Open to players of any instrument who play and read music at least an intermediate level.
The open house and all sessions will take place at the Workmen's Circle, 45 East 33rd Street (between Park and Madison), Manhattan.
Members $125; per session $25
Non-members $145; per session $30

Musical Revelations at the Jerusalem Theatre

Thursday December 12th 2005, 20:00
Henry Crown Hall, The Jerusalem Theatre
Conductor: Leon Butstein
Participants:
The Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra
The Ramat-Gan Chamber Choir, conductor: Hana Zur
The Kibbutz Artzi Choir, conductor: Yuval Ben-Ozer

Soloists:
Sharon Rostroff-Zamir – Soprano
Gal James – Alto
Felix Libshitz – Tenor
Zvi Salton – Narrator

In the program:
Schönberg – Kol Nidrei
Goldschmmit – Cello Concerto, Soloist: Oleg Stolfaner
Mendelssohn – Symphony no. 2: Lobgesang

Tickets:
Tel: 1-700-700-4000

The Music Festival Abu Gosh

Friday October 21st 2005, 19:30
The Kiryat Yearim Church
The SeasonsFall and Winter
Yoseph Haydn
Conductor: Yuval Ben-Ozer
Participants: The Kibbutz Artzi Choir, The Symphoniette Raanan Orchestra
Soloists: Hila Baggio � Soprano
Tal Koch � Tenor
Alxei Kononikov � Baritone

Tickets:Tel-Aviv:
Castel, Tel: 03-604-5000 or *5000 from a Bezeq line Jerusalem:
Klaim, Tel: 02-622-2333 Bimot, Tel: 02-623-7000 Haifa:
Gerber, Tel: 04-838-4777

Festival Klezmopolitan

Festival Klezmopolitan has quite a hot lineup of events planned for this month-- check it out: les 20, 21, 22 et 23 octobre 2005 à la Cigale et à la Boule Noire, PARIS. Quatre jours de musiques juives actuelles! Une affiche exaltante, des projets originaux avec plus de 100 musiciens des 4 coins du monde! Programme et extraits sonores: www.klezmopolitan.com Réservations: 0(033)892-707-507 et FNAC www.fnac.com

DETAILS:
- le 20 octobre: Jennifer Charles et Oren Bloedow du groupe Elysian Fields, La Mar Enfortuna, réinterprétation des plus belles chansons du répertoire séfarade. En 1ère partie, la nouvelle création électro klezmer d'Olaf Hund

- le 21 octobre, le célèbre clarinettiste Don Byron rencontre le Cracow Klezmer Band de Cracovie, David Krakauer & Klezmer Madness aiguisera sa clarinette au contact de la violoniste tchèque Iva Bittova

- le 22 octobre: les Klezmatics, pionniers du revival Klezmer à New-York avec en 1ère partie le grand orchestre d'un hautboïste danois autour d'un projet de dialogue interculturel autour des répertoires juif et arabe

- le 23 octobre, la chanteuse yiddish Talila rencontre le grand percussionniste cubano-new-yorkais Roberto J. Rodriguez autour de mélodies yiddish latino, après le ciné-concert de Merlin et Polina Shepherd sur des archives cinématographiques du début du siècle

........................................................................................ LES AFTERS DE LA BOULE NOIRE:

VENDREDI 21 OCTOBRE: AFROSEMITIC PARTY !
ShrineSynchroSystem's Klezmaniax : Max Reinhardt, Rita Ray, Sophie Solomon de Oi Va Voi, Kobi Israélite, et surprises ! +Fenugrec beat et Lasco Super World8 + Dj Tagada! Fusion du klezmer avec l'afrobeat à faire tomber les murs de Jéricho

SAMEDI 22 OCTOBRE: WELCOME TO BROOKLYN PARTY !
SoCalled, Hip Hop Hoodios, S-Tel & guests...
Aux commandes de cette soirée dédiée au hip hop, au rap, au dub et au groove klezmer, un jeune maestro au look de Mickey égaré doté d'une verve oratoire à la Lenny Bruce . SoCalled ! Un trio déjanté, réponse latino/ladino aux Beastie Boys, les HHH ! Ou encore, une jeune violoniste et son groupe détonnant où fusionnent électro et mélodies slaves et orientales avec pêle-mêle accordéon, rappeur, chanteuses orientales, khazan etc., S-Tel !

Programme et extraits sonores: www.klezmopolitan.com Réservations: 0(033)892-707-507 et FNAC www.fnac.com

Klezmer Field Work

Shane Solow has put together a webpage as part of "Lost Trails" with some sound clips of field recordings done in Romania of klezmer music. He recorded musicians in northern Romania that play "archaic melodies" that are a prototype for Klezmer music. They learned the melodies from Jewish musicians who lived in this region before the second world war. They are some of the last performers who know this tradition in that area. The musicians on the CD are:
Constantin Lupu, violin
Constantin Negel, cobza
Anton Mitica Stefan, drum
http://www.losttrails.com/pages/Music/Lupu.html
The music is available for sale.

New Score Live to an Old Silent Movie

Wednesday 26th October 8.30pm – 11pm
SCORE @ the Everyman Cinema and the new Jewish Community Centre for London
Everyman Cinema Club, Holly Bush Vale,
London, NW3 6TX
Price: £12 /£30 double sofas.
TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE EVERYMAN BOX OFFICE ON 0870 0664777

Three musicians perform a specially created new score live to an old silent movie. Lemez Lovas (Oi Va Voi) leads Moshikop and Rohan Kriwaczek in a musical exploration of 1923 Yiddish film East and West, taking us from traditional klezmer to contemporary electronica, from vaudeville to breakbeat…..

In East and West, directed by Goldin and Abramson, New York flapper Mollie (Molly Picon) travels to her shy and demure cousin’s wedding in a Polish shtetl. Whilst keeping the villagers entertained by her boisterous antics, Mollie also catches the eye of a dashing young yeshiva scholar (Jacob Kalish). As love blossom between East and West, traditional and modern worlds collide.

Produced by YaD Arts for the Jewish Community Centre
http://www.ica.org.uk/ & http://www.jewishcommunitycentre.org.uk/ For other Jewish Community Centre events check out their website…

HAIFA INTERNATIONAL FLUTE COMPETITION 2005

November 17-23, Haifa, Israel
Music Director: Ada Pelleg
Music Advisor: Yossi Arnheim
Presented by the Haifa Music Center
32 A Kadima St. HAIFA 34383 ISRAEL
Tel. 972-4-8223440 Fax. 972-4-8387382
http://haifamusic.co.il/Flute/ Jury:
Andras Adorian (Germany),
Uri Shoham (Israel),
Raffaele Trevisani (Italy),
Yehezikiel Braun (Israel),
Ada Pelleg (Israel)
Prizes and Awards:
1st place - 10,000 NIS (¤)
In memory of Ilan Shapira Given by the Israeli Ministry of Education, Culture & Sports
2nd place - 5,000 NIS (¤)
Given by the Haifa Cultural Foundation
3rd place - 2,500 NIS (¤)
Given by the Round Table 14 Haifa -Israel

Additional Prizes:
Invitation to perform with the Israel String Ensemble
Invitation to perform in Safed Music Festival

Cantor Rebecca Garfein at Carnegie Hall Nov. 10

"Golden Chants In America"
Cantor Rebecca Garfein, Congregation Rodeph Sholom, Manhattan, will present the concert and historic CD debut of "Golden Chants in America...Commemorating 350 years of Jewish Music, 1654-2004," 7 p.m., Nov. 10, 2005 at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York. Accompanying Cantor Garfein, at the concert and on the CD is "Golden Chants" musical director and pianist Jonathan Faiman and the "Golden Chants" combo and choir. Including music from the Spanish-Portuguese Jews, the synagogue and the Yiddish and Broadway theater, the CD is the first U.S. recording to feature Jewish music spanning 350 years of life in America. A portion of the concert proceeds will be donated to MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, and designated for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Tickets for the "Golden Chants" concert are available at the Carnegie Hall Box Office, Carnegie Charge 212-247-7800 or online at www.carnegiehall.org; the Cantor’s new CD will be available at metropolitan area music outlets and www.amazon.com.

Cantor Garfein, a mezzo-soprano who made history in 1997 as the first female cantor to sing in Berlin, Germany, explains, "Golden Chants" represents a compilation of three and a half centuries of significant Jewish music brought to the U.S. by Jewish immigrants or written by Jewish composers on American soil." She adds the concert and CD release are timely since this fall marks the end of a year-long celebration of 350 years of Jewish life in America.



Cantor Garfein says her concert and album will "pay tribute to all immigrants arriving in America looking for that golden chance of opportunity and freedom." She points out the album’s cover photo, taken from the southern edge of Ellis Island, represents the "new immigrant" looking south toward the Statue of Liberty "in anticipation of a new life." Symbolically, Cantor Garfein says, the album begins with "The Colossus," by Max Helfman, which sets to music the words of poet Emma Lazarus, a Sephardic Jew: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free…." The text of the full poem, written by Lazarus in 1883, is enshrined in bronze at the pedestal of the Statue Liberty.

The concert and album will feature compositions sung in a virtual rainbow of languages, including Spanish, Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), German, Yiddish, Hebrew and English—much of which was brought to America by the Spanish-Portuguese, Russian and German Jews over the last 350 years. Album selections include "Bendigamos," a Spanish-Portuguese Jewish grace after meals sung in 16th century Castilian Spanish; and "Halleluyah," and the "Deutsche Kedusha," the great music of Vienna and Berlin written for the synagogue by Solomon Sulzer and Louis Lewandowski, respectively. To this day, most American Reform and many Conservative and Orthodox congregations continue to utilize Sulzer’s "Shema" and Lewandowski’s "Kiddush" in their services.

Other album and concert highlights feature Yiddish and Broadway music, including "Vos is gevorn fun mayn Shtetele?" (What has become of my Shtetl?), "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen," and Jerome Kern’s "Can’t Help Lovin’ that Man," from the 1927 musical, "Show Boat."

The concert and CD will also pay tribute to several of the modern Jewish composers, including Cantor Robbie Solomon, who has written extensively for the American synagogue. His gospel-style "Peace by Piece," embodies a universal anthem that expresses commitment to social action and the ultimate goal of peace.

Also, Cantor Garfein will demonstrate how modern interpretations of ancient prayer melodies have been influenced by contemporary American harmonies with selections of "Yih’yu L’ratson" and "Oseh Shalom" (prayers for meditation and peace), by composer Cantor Marshall Portnoy.

First Female Cantor to Sing in Germany In 1997, Cantor Garfein became the first female cantor to give a solo concert at the Jewish Cultural Festival in Berlin Germany, from where her grandfather fled during the Holocaust. At the 1998 Berlin Jewish Cultural Festival, Cantor Garfein became the first female cantor to preside in a German synagogue and released a CD, "Sacred Chants of the Contemporary Synagogue," a live recording of her historic 1997 Berlin concert.

Cantor Garfein made her Carnegie Hall debut in June, 2005 in a benefit concert for the Folksbiene Yiddish Theater featuring Mandy Patinkin. A native of Tallahassee, Florida, Cantor Garfein graduated cum laude from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music with a degree in vocal performance and opera. In 1993, she received her Master’s Degree in Sacred Music and Cantorial Investiture from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR). She has been a featured soloist with the Ra’a’na’na Orchestra and the Zamir Chorale at the Jerusalem Theater in Israel and in 2001 was a soloist at the 350th anniversary concert of the Curacao Jewish Community.

While completing her studies at HUC-JIR, Cantor Garfein was the Director of Children’s Music at Riverdale Temple, Riverdale, the Bronx, New York. Upon graduation from HUC-JIR, she subsequently became the first Cantor of Riverdale Temple and served in that capacity until 1999, when she was the first woman appointed as Senior Cantor of Congregation Rodeph Sholom in New York City.

Accompanying Cantor Garfein, at the concert and on the CD is "Golden Chants" musical director and pianist Jonathan Faiman and the "Golden Chants" combo and choir. Mr. Faiman, a multiple ASCAP award winner, has received critical acclaim for his solo CD, "Hie Up The Mountain." He is a member of the Locrian Chamber Players and The Actors Company Theatre, with whom Mr. Faiman has composed and performed for numerous concerts and productions. In New York City, Mr. Faiman has performed extensively in most major halls, including Avery Fisher, Merkin, Symphony Space and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. He has taught at Concordia College and is on the faculty of Bloomingdale School of Music and the Preparatory Divison of Manhattan School of Music, from where he holds a Doctorate.

Israel Kibbutz Orchestra Opens 35th Season with Bach B Minor Mass

The Israel Kibbutz Orchestra's Opening Concert for the 35th season is the Bach Mass in B Minor One of the greatest masterpieces of all times. The IKO will host the Neuer Kammerchor Potsdam and soloists (Israel and Germany) Conductor: Yaron Gottfried at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tues. October 25, 2005 at 20:30.
For Tickets: 099604757.
Soprano - Keren Motseri
Alto - Noa Frenkel
Tenor - John Bowley (England)
Bass - Raimund Nolte (Germany)
Kibbutz Dorot Auditorium Tues. October 18, 2005 at 20:30 Tel. 09-9604757

"Kimeron" Hall Beit Shean Wed. October 19, 2005 at 20:30 Tel. 04-6065860

Nahariya Culture Hall Thurs. October 20, 2005 at 20:30 Tel. 04-9829933

Kibbutz Ein Hashofet Auditorium Sat. October 22, 2005 at 20:30 Tel. 04-9893401

Kibbutz Givat Brenner Auditorium Wed. October 26, 2005 at 20:30 Tel. 08-9443433

Kibbutz Ein Hahoresh Auditorium Thurs. October 27, 2005 at 20:30 Tel. 04-6127719

TOUR of ALEXANDER ZEMLINSKY SONGS

HERMINE HASELBÖCK, Mezzo soprano, Laureate of the International Zemlinsky Award and Florian Henschel, pian), will give a national tour featuring ALEXANDER ZEMLINSKY SONGS. October 2, 2005: Annapolis /Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts
October 3, 2005: Maryland /Salisbury University
October 5 & 6, 2005: New York /Austrian Cultural Forum
October 9, 2005: Los Angeles /Radio Live Broadcast in ‘KMozart’
October 11, 2005: Washington /Austrian Embassy
November 18, 2005: Wiener Musikverein

more details on Heremine Haselboeck

MORE ABOUT HERMINE HASELBOCK:
After making a successful debut at styriarte Graz 2005 Hermine Haselböck is considered as one of the most promising Austrian mezzo-sopranos. Nikolaus Harnoncourt engaged the artist for the part of Mercedes in his highly acclaimed Carmen-production (staged by Andrea Breth). For the 2005/06 season, Hermine Haselböck will be able to refer to several important debuts: At Concertgebouw Amsterdam she will debut as Dorabella in a concert-performance of Cosi fan tutte and will later tour through other cities of the Netherlands with this production. Being laureate of the Zemlinsky-Award 2005 Hermine Haselböck will sing recitals in New York, Washington and Los Angeles as well as at Wiener Musikverein later. At Wiener Volksoper she will make her house-debut as Hansel in Hansel and Gretel. Under the baton of Tomas Netopil she will sing two concerts (Schubert: Mass in e flat major) at Teatro San Carlo Naples. Afterwards she will start rehearsals at Theater an der Wien where she will make her debut in Schulhoff’s Flammen (conductor: Bertrand de Billy) during the Wiener Klangbogen 2006. At the end of the season Austrian mezzo-soprano will appear in Handel’s Jephta at St. Gallen Festival and prepare for her debuts in Vienna (Magic Flute under Fabio Luisi) and at Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg.
Pan Classics released Hermine Haselböck’s debut-solo-CD Songs by Zemlinsky(piano: Florian Henschel) that attracted international attention. The recording got excellent reviews in well-known European music-magazines and was presented in the Austrian, Bavarian and Hessian radio as well as in Deutschlandradio Berlin. In November 2005 Hermine Haselböck will be decorated with the Zemlinsky-Award during a ceremony at the Wiener Musikverein.
Hermine Haselböck worked together with conductors like Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Elio Boncompagni, Martin Sieghart, Erwin Ortner, Martin Haselböck and Claudius Traunfellner. Her opera-repertoire includes parts like Dorabella in Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte, Zweite Dame in Magic Flute, Mercedes in Bizet’s Carmen, Fiorilla in Rossini’s Il Turco in Italia, Miss Wordswoth in Britten’s Albert Herring, Hansel in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, Mrs. P. in Nyman’s The Man who mistook his wife for a hat and Amore in J.J. Fux’s Dafne.
After graduating from Stiftsgymnasium Melk Hermine Haselböck started her studies at Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna (Teachers: Rita Streich and Hartmut Krones). She completed her studies with Ingeborg Ruß at Hochschule für Musik in Detmold / Germany passing her final artistic examination and attended master-classes with Kurt Equiluz, Kurt Widmer, Christa Ludwig, Edith Sélig-Papée, Sena Jurinac and Marjana Lipovsek.