Mama Doni

The Mama Doni Band is a quirky and energetic family-friendly rock band that is dedicated to making Jewish culture fresh and fun for kids. The music is funny and clever for adults as well as kids (everyone from babies to bubbies they like to say).

Mama Doni just released a new album called "I Love Herring (and Other Fish Shticks For Kids)" you can hear some samples at MamaDoni.com.

www.MamaDoni.com The Mama Doni Band came away with one of the top prizes in this year's International Jewish Music Festival held in Amsterdam from May 9-12. Competing against ensembles from 15 countries, The Mama Doni Band was awarded the special IJMF Foundation Simcha Prize for Inspiring Joy through Music. (Simcha is the Yiddish word for "joy" or "gladness."). The Prize carries a cash award of 500 Euros.

Though many of the 23 competing ensembles have been performing together for years, the newly formed Mama Doni Band was selected by the Festival for this prestigious award in recognition of the joyfulness and energy Mama Doni Band brings to Jewish music. The Mama Doni Band's fresh blend of "Jewgrass," rock, and reggae garnered high praise and resulted in the receipt of the special prize.

Craig Taubman's Jewels of Elul

For the 4th consecutive year, Craig Taubman and Craig 'N Co. are producing Jewels of Elul, a collection of stories and inspirations for the High Holidays. This year's contributors range from Senators McCain and Obama to Jeffrey Katzenberg, Olympic medalist Elka Graham, and Lynn Schusterman.

Thanks to the support and vision of the Stefan Adelipour for Life Foundation, the Jewels will be available online at www.jewelsofelul.com and in booklet form free of charge.

Shefa Gold in Brookline, MA

Rabbi Shefa Gold Scholar-in-Residence
A Weekend in Preparation for High Holidays

Temple Beth Zion,
1566 Beacon Street,
Brookline (617) 566-8171 x 20
Please RSVP to office@nishmathayyim.org.

Renowned musician and teacher Rabbi Shefa Gold will lead a Opening Our Hearts to Forgiveness Selichot Service Saturday, September 20 th from 9:30PM-11:00PM - Free!
and

A Day Long Retreat about the Elulian Mysteries. This workshop will explore the journey from devastation to renewal in preparation for the High Holy Days through study, chant, meditation and sacred conversation.
Cost: $72 before 8/22, $85.00 after 8/22,
$36.00 for students and seniors To to www.nishmathayyim.org to register or
call 617-566-8171 x20 for more info.

NISHMAT HAYYIM cultivates Jewish meditation and contemplative practices in New England through collaborations with synagogues and other Jewish institutions and programs for individuals from all backgrounds.

NEW YORK FESTIVAL OF SONG 2008-2009, 21st SEASON

Leonard Bernstein, Voices of the Jewish Diaspora and Fugitives (composers who left Germany during the 1930's), will all be themes of the acclaimed New York Festival Of Song (NYFOS, www.nyfos.org)presentations for 2008-9. A guest artist will be the rising Israeli mezzo-soprano Rinat Shaham, already an acclaimed Carmen in Europe.

Opens September 23, 2008 in NYC with a Bernstein/Bolcom Celebration

Also: Fugitives on NOVEMBER 18 AND 20, 2008 and Voices of the Jewish Diaspora on February 10 and 12, 2009.

Below is a description of the season: NEW YORK FESTIVAL OF SONG 2008-2009, 21st SEASON

OPENS SEPTEMBER 23 IN NYC WITH A BERNSTEIN / BOLCOM CELEBRATION

ALSO: VOICES OF THE JEWISH DIASPORA (FEBRUARY 10 AND 12) FUGITIVES (NOVEMBER 18 AND 20)

GUEST ARTISTS INCLUDE ISRAELI MEZZO-SOPRANO RINAT SHAHAM

NEW YORK CONCERTS AT MERKIN CONCERT HALL, WEILL RECITAL HALL, THE JUILLIARD SCHOOL

New York Festival Of Song (NYFOS, www.nyfos.org), co-founded and directed by pianists Steven Blier and Michael Barrett, who “reinvented the song recital during the 1990’s with daring and dramatic programming” (The New Yorker), announces its 21st season (2008-2009).

The company’s New York City concerts begin on September 23 at the newly renovated Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Center, with A Bernstein / Bolcom Celebration. The concert pays tribute to two of NYFOS’s guiding lights, Leonard Bernstein and William Bolcom; Bolcom and his wife, mezzo-soprano Joan Morris, will cap the evening with a selection of songs from their vast repertoire. The program also celebrates the ninetieth birthday of NYFOS’s Founding Advisor, Leonard Bernstein, who bestowed the American premiere of his last work, Arias and Barcarolles, to the newly-formed company. Their subsequent recording of the work in 1989, with Judy Kaye and William Sharp, earned the composer a posthumous Grammy Award for Best New Composition.

Other concert programs this year include Fugitives (Nov. 18 and 20), works by composers who fled Europe during Hitler’s rise to power; Voices of the Jewish Diaspora (Feb. 10 and 12), songs in many languages from the worldwide Jewish community; Songs of the Irish Poets, scheduled for St. Patrick’s Day, featuring the lyricism of the Emerald Isle’s greatest writers set to music by Beethoven, Britten and others; and The Welcome Shore (May 19 and 21), songs of rivers and oceans, by composers ranging from Brahms to Noël Coward. Special events include Latin Lovers (January 14), the fourth annual NYFOS@Juilliard concert. The collaboration between NYFOS and The Juilliard School’s Vocal Arts Department celebrates the students’ creative energy and superior vocal talent; alumni of the program have begun to participate in NYFOS’s regular season concerts. NYFOS will also have a Gala Concert on April 17 at Weill Recital Hall, program to be announced.

Guest artists at NYFOS for 2008-2009 include: mezzo-soprano Rinat Shaham, who will be featured in opera and concert at Paris’ Theatre de la Champs-Élysées and the Lucerne Festival; mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, the Lucrezia in Bastianello / Lucrezia last spring, and soon to sing Kitty Oppenheimer in the Metropolitan Opera’s New York Premiere of Doctor Atomic; mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey, who will be seen as Cherubino and in many other roles at the Metropolitan this season; tenor Joseph Kaiser, the Tamino of the Kenneth Branagh film version of The Magic Flute, and Narraboth in the Met’s Salome this year as well as at Covent Garden; and soprano Dina Kuznetsova, featured in NYFOS’s Obsession à la Russe, who will star as Alice Ford in a new production of Falstaff at Glyndebourne, and will appear with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

On its touring schedule, NYFOS brings Bastianello / Lucrezia, the acclaimed double-bill of one-act comic operas by William Bolcom and John Musto with librettos by Mark Campbell, to the Moab Music Festival in Utah on September 5; The Last Time I Saw Paris, French song from The Jazz Age to post-World War II, to the Robbie Colomore Concert Series in Chester, Connecticut (October 26) and the Andover Chamber Music Series in Massachusetts (November 9); Fugitives to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., presented by the Vocal Arts Society (November 14); Voices of the Jewish Diaspora to the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland at College Park (February 15); and Songs of the Irish Poets to the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts in Katonah, NY (March 14), which culminates a week-long professional training residency, Caramoor Vocal Rising Stars, sponsored by and presented at Caramoor. Leading the week's events will be NYFOS artistic directors and pianists Steven Blier and Michael Barrett who will be working with a select group of young singers from around the country invited to participate in this auspicious project. The program will be repeated as part of NYFOS’s New York City 2008-2009 concert season at Merkin Concert Hall on March 17, 2009.

The initial season of the Caramoor Vocal Rising Stars Program will be underwritten, in part, by The Terrance W. Schwab Fund for Young Vocal Artists.

NEW YORK SEASON SCHEDULE
Tuesday and Thursday, SEPTEMBER 23 & 25, 2008
Merkin Concert Hall
“A Bernstein / Bolcom Celebration”

A tribute to two of New York Festival of Song’s guiding lights, Leonard Bernstein and William Bolcom, quintessential American composers and great spirits who have long provided wisdom, guidance, and music to NYFOS. Songs from Bernstein's Peter Pan, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Songfest, Wonderful Town, On the Town, Arias and Barcarolles; Bolcom's Cabaret Songs, I Will Breathe a Mountain, Briefly It Enters, McTeague; and a special appearance by Joan Morris and William Bolcom, who will share signature songs from their repertoire.

Artists: Sari Gruber, soprano; Rebecca Jo Loeb, mezzo-soprano; Joan Morris, mezzo-soprano; Renée Tatum, mezzo-soprano; Alex Mansoori, tenor; William Sharp, baritone; Marc Webster, bass; William Bolcom, Steven Blier and Michael Barrett, piano

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Tuesday and Thursday, NOVEMBER 18 & 20, 2008
Merkin Concert Hall
“Fugitives”

An evening of songs from the concert stage, the movies, Broadway, and Berlin's cabarets that trace the varied fortunes of the gifted composers who fled destruction during Hitler’s rise to power--some to begin new lives and brilliant careers abroad, others to meet with darker fates. Music by Kurt Weill, Franz Schreker, Arnold Zemlinsky, Kurt Tucholsky, Erich Korngold, Hanns Eisler, Friedrich Hollaender, Emmerich Kálmán, and many others.

Artists: Kate Lindsey, mezzo-soprano; Joseph Kaiser, tenor; Steven Blier, piano

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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2009
Peter Jay Sharp Auditorium at The Juilliard School

“Latin Lovers: An Evening of Cuban and South American Song,” the fourth annual NYFOS@Juilliard concert.

Songs by Guastavino, Astor Piazzolla, Carlos López-Buchardo, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Ernesto Lecuona, and many others.

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Tuesday and Thursday, FEBRUARY 10 & 12, 2009
Merkin Concert Hall
“Voices of the Jewish Diaspora”

Songs in many languages celebrate the culturally diverse Jewish communities that flourished as the tribes of Israel spread out across the globe. Sephardic melodies arranged by Alberto Hemsi and Roberto Sierra; Second Avenue specialties by Irving Berlin and Joseph Rumshinsky; art songs by Ravel, Milhaud, and Rubinstein; plus music by Gershwin and Bernstein.

Artists: Dina Kuznetsova, soprano; Rinat Shaham, mezzo-soprano; Steven Goldstein, tenor; Steven Blier and Michael Barrett, piano

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Tuesday, MARCH 17, 2009
Merkin Hall
“Songs of the Irish Poets”

The lyricism of the Emerald Isle’s greatest writers, including Thomas Moore, W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, and Paul Muldoon, as set to music by Beethoven, Britten, Balfe, Barber and others; with a group of traditional Irish songs featuring the fiddle playing of Paul Woodiel.

Artists: Paul Appleby, tenor; other members of Caramoor’s Terrence W. Schwab Vocal Rising Stars Program; Steven Blier and Michael Barrett, piano

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TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 2009
Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall

Spring Gala

Program TBA

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Tuesday and Thursday, MAY 19 & 21, 2009
Merkin Concert Hall
“The Welcome Shore”

A hymn to rivers and oceans stirs the heart and the imagination as the summer season draws near. Music by Elgar (the magnificent Sea Pictures), Fauré, Guastavino, Rachmaninoff, Brahms, Noël Coward, Pauline Viardot, and many others.

Artists: Michelle Areyzaga, soprano; Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano; Philip Cutlip, baritone; Steven Blier and Michael Barrett, piano

New York Festival of Song was founded in 1988 by Steven Blier and Michael Barrett. NYFOS is dedicated to creating intimate song concerts of great beauty, humor and originality, combining music, poetry, and history to entertain, educate and create community among audiences and performers. With a far-ranging repertoire of art songs, concert works and theater pieces, its thematic recitals have included programs from Brahms to the Beatles, from the nineteenth-century salons of Paris to Tin Pan Alley, from Russian art song to Argentine tangos, from sixteenth-century lute songs to new music. NYFOS particularly celebrates American song literature and culture, and specializes in premiering and commissioning new American works. They have produced five recordings on the Koch label, including a Grammy Award-winning disc of Bernstein’s Arias and Barcarolles, as well as the Grammy-nominated recording of Ned Rorem’s Evidence of Things Not Seen on New World Records, and the Bridge Records release of the NYFOS program Spanish Love Songs. NYFOS’s concert series, touring programs, radio broadcasts, recordings, and educational activities have inspired a new interest in the creative possibilities of the song program, and have inspired the creation of thematic vocal series around the world.

Artistic Director Steven Blier has programmed, performed, translated and annotated over 100 song programs with repertoire spanning the entire range of American song, art song from Schubert to Szymanowski, and popular song from early vaudeville to Lennon-McCartney. In addition, Mr. Blier enjoys an eminent career as an accompanist and vocal coach. Among the many artists he has partnered in recital are Renée Fleming, Cecilia Bartoli, Samuel Ramey, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Susan Graham and Frederica von Stade. Associate Artistic Director Michael Barrett is also the CEO of Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, and General Director of the Caramoor International Music Festival. In 1992 Mr. Barrett and his wife Leslie Tomkins founded The Moab Music Festival in Utah, for which he serves as music director. He has conducted major orchestras here and abroad in the symphonic, operatic, and dance repertoire, and is the former director of the Tisch Center for the Arts at the 92nd Street Y. Mr. Barrett has conducted and played premieres by Bernstein, Blitzstein, Bolcom, Kernis, Sellars, Harrison, Takemitsu, Del Tredici and John Corigliano.

Funding for the Bastianello / Lucrezia CD release on Bridge Records was provided by the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc. Commission and first performance of Bastianello by John Musto and Mark Cambell and Lucrezia by William Bolcom and Mark Campbell by New York Festival of Song, Inc. were supported by the New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

NYFOS’s New York City concert series is funded, in part, by the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts.

Eyal Moaz Edom

Tzadik label has released Eyal Maoz's Edom. Eyal Maoz, a guitarist, is a composer born in Israel but based in New York City. His CD Edom is with John Medeski on organ, Shanir Blumenkranz on acoustic and electric bass and Ben Perowsky on drums. Maoz is known as a leader of the fusion-neo-klezmer group "Lemon Juice". His ensembles performed at the Red Sea International Jazz Festival, Verizon Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, NYC Winter JazzFest and many more. Eyal was hosted at NPR WNYC ear To Ear radio program, presenting some of his music and ensembles. Maoz wrote nine original tracks for this CD. The CD is part of the Radical Jewish Culture series on John Zorn's Tzadik Records. The cover photo, along with some musical elements, reflect tributes to the Masada songs on another Tzadik recording.

Lisa Jane Lipkin CD A Prayer for Peace

Lisa Jane Lipkin, an American singer songwriter, has created a new collection of Jewish prayers and chants based on traditional texts but performed with her own compositions. These prayers represent a spiritual journey for Lipkin, with Hebrew and English texts. Lipkin is a New York based musician who has recorded, arranged and produced for other artists including Sandi Kimmel, Christine Pepe and Neal Bomberg. Her first CD was Raise the Honey. Lisa has said "With the thirst of a mystic I traversed the world of spiritual teachings only to discover that all the wonders I learned out there were also in here in Jewish prayer and thought." Lisa has performed at NYC Mamapalooza, the Towne Crier, and the Tupelo Music Hall. For information about the CD, visit: www.lisjanelipkin.com or http://cdbaby.com/cd/ljlipkin2 Lisa Jane Lipkin, born in New Jersey, studied flute, oboe and choral music. She took a BA in music from Rutgers University, studying jazz with Kenny Baron. She studied voice, and began singing standards at open mics in Greenwich Village. She later was musical director for a 60s girls group revue "The Heartbreaks". She worked for ten years in the recording industry, including a stint at jazz radio promotion at BMG.

Eyal Bitton's CD High Holiday Memories

A new CD, High Holiday Memories: Timeless Moroccan & Sephardi Classics, has been released by Eyal Bitton. Bitton is a composer lyricist and musical director. He contributed lyrics for the musical of Mordecai Richler's The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and has written for such musicals as King David, Moses, Freedom: The Moses & MartinLurther King Jr. Musical Tribute. Bitton is Musical Director at Toronto's Beth Tikvah Synagogue. He has conducted choirs for the Spanish & Portugues Synagogue (Canada's first congregation), Adath Israel Poale Zedek, Jewish Peoples and Peretz Schools, La Chorale Kinor and others. For more information about the CD, visit: www.eyalbitton.com

Hebrew University's Jewish Music Research Center Blog

A new blog from the Hebrew University Jewish Music Research Centre gives great access with links to their online exhibits.
http://jewish-music-research.blogspot.com/

They have also got some nice exhibit images on Flickr, such as the Goldfaden Centennial Exhbit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26577116@N04/sets/72157605173229332/