January 11, 2011

"KlezmerQuerque"

"KlezmerQuerque" - The southwest's annual festival of klezmer music & dance celebrates its 9th year February 18-20 (Presidents day weekend).

KlezmerQuerque 2011 is coming!! The 9th annual celebration of Klezmer music & dance will take place over Presidents Day Weekend from February 18-20 (FRI-SUN). The festival is co-produced by Congregation Nahalat Shalom, Nahalat Shalom's 25-piece Community Klezmer band & Rikud Yiddish dance troupe. All KlezmerQuerque events will take place at Nahalat Shalom, 3606 Rio Grande Blvd. NW in Albuquerque (between Candelaria & Griegos on Rio Grande).

KlezmerQuerque 2011 brings us special guset artist Joseph "Yosl" Kurland (Yiddish song, Language & Dance - PLUS traditional Shabbes nusach & prayers in 'loshn-koydesh'). Yosl took up the violin, like his father, in the second grade in the Bronx, and played only classical music for years. Later, he learned guitar and sang songs he learned from Pete Seeger and The Weavers records, "and I dreamed of performing songs about peace and justice as they did." In college in Cambridge and Chicago, he also began performing music for Balkan, Hungarian, and other international folk dancing. As a high school history teacher, he used to perform American labor songs for his students. But it wasn't until he turned 40 that Joe learned to speak Yiddish. "To me, Yiddish offers a way of expressing things with a unique tying together of the earthy and the heavenly," he says. "A single Yiddish word in a story or song can paint a whole picture within a picture because of the layers of meanings attached to it." Joe enjoys writing his own songs in Yiddish, such as an intimate prayer needling God about human injustice, or a story bringing torah personages into modern times to work out their conflicts. "It's an intensely powerful mode of expression because of the associations people make with the original stories and the new interpretations." He also sings for High Holiday and Shabbos services in the style of the Eastern European ba'aley-tefile, prints ketubot, designs websites, and has taught Yiddish language at the National Yiddish Book Center and at various conferences, and has taught in the children's program at the annual "Klez Kamp" Yiddish folk arts program on New York. One of his songs was selected in the 2008 competition for New Jewish Liturgical Music held by the Shalshelet Foundation.

KlezmerQuerque is also honored to present Christina Crowder (accordion & Fulbright scholar in Romanian-Jewish ethno-studies). Christina was trained as a classical pianist, but caught the folk music bug in college and switched to accordion. She later studied Scandinavian and Bulgarian accordion in Seattle and performed with the acoustic folk-rock band Bad Karma Banjo. Christina moved to Hungary in 1993, where she studied Hungarian folk dance and became a founding member of the Budapest-based Yiddish music ensemble Di Naye Kapelye. She appears on their albums Aleph (1995), Di Naye Kapelye (1998), and A Mazeldiker Yid (2001). Di Naye Kapelye focused on both researching and re-creating the sound of the musicians that served rural and urban Jewish communities in the early 20th century. Christina and her husband John DeMetrick continued this research with Fulbright grants to Romania in 1999-2000. Their work encompassed field-work with musicians, archival research and collecting commercial recordings related to Jewish music in Romania. Christina also plays old-time music on banjo and fiddle and travels to various fiddlers' conventions and gatherings in New England and West Virginia. She finds a strong connection between the Appalachian and Klezmer traditions: "I find that playing traditional music - of any kind - is a unique way to connect to history. At a dance or a party, you can really feel yourself connected to essentially the same scene, maybe fifty, a hundred, even 150 years ago. I really enjoy trying to capture the essence of tune, as passed on to me through the musicians or recordings I've learned it from, and then convey that spirit to dancers or an audience." Both Yosl and Christina are members of 'The Wholesale Klezmer Band' which is based in New England (www.ganeydn.com) and they will be teaching, performing and presenting at KlezmerQuerque all weekend.

KlezmerQuerque 2011 is also very excited to bring back our dear friend and incredible virtuoso klezmer clarinetist Margot Leverett, who is one of the foremost clarinetists of the klezmer revival. Classically trained at Indiana University School of Music, she was involved in avant-garde music when she first heard klezmer, the dynamic East European music traditionally played at Jewish weddings. Leverett was a founding member of the Klezmatics in 1985 before moving on to establish a solo career. Her first CD, "The Art of Klezmer Clarinet," a tribute to classic klezmer of the 20's and 30's, was released in 2001 on Traditional Crossroads (CD4296) to glowing reviews. Her current project, "Margot Leverett and the Klezmer Mountain Boys" (www.klezmermountainboys.com) is an all-star band combining the best of bluegrass and klezmer. Their self-titled CD, released to rave reviews in 2002, was choreographed by the Paul Taylor Dance Company in a new work entitled "Klezmerbluegrass". Their latest release "Second Avenue Square Dance" features guest artists Jorma Kaukonen and Hazel Dickens and is available now from Traditional Crossroads. Margot was recently featured as a guest soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, along with Udi Bar-David and the artists of Intercultural Journeys, a concert and cultural organization to promote intercultural dialogue (www.philorch.org). She has toured Japan twice with The New York Ragtime Orchestra and has been featured in several Off-Broadway productions. Ms. Leverett was a staff instructor at KlezKamp for over 10 years and has also taught at KlezKanada, Klezkamp West, KlezmerQuerque, and at colleges, music festivals, and Jewish organizations across the country and in Europe. She will be performing Friday & Saturday evenings with ABQ-based klezmer and Judaic ensemble 'The Rebbe's Orkestra' (www.isound.com/rebbes_orkestra_klezmer_and_judaic_band ) and teaching 2 music workshops on Sunday.

KlezmerQuerque 2011 schedule of events:

Feb. 18th Friday evening (6:30pm): Celebrate a special Freylekher Shabbes (Joyous Shabbat) with Yosl Kurland, Margot Leverett, Christina Crowder, Rabbi Deborah Brin, Cantorial soloist Beth Cohen, The Nahalat Shalom Community Klezmer Band, Rikud Yiddish dance troupe and The Rebbe's Orkestra. Schedule for the evening is: 6:30- A joyous danced & participatory 'old country' Shabbat service, 7:15-vegetarian potluck dinner, 7:45 -more dancing to live klezmer music - [$18-suggested optional donation].

Saturday, February 19th from 10am-noon: Yosl Kurland will lead a learner's Shabbos Service featuring a "hands-on" workshop/service about using traditional 'nusach' (special melodies which use specific modes & scales). Using only Shabbos morning material, Yosl will teach us how to put together nusakh elements to chant prayers, as well as interspersing some prayers sung as congregational songs and chanting a khazanic solo within the context of a congregational chant of the kedusha. Teachings & Kavanot will be led by Rabbi Deborah Brin. Service will be followed by a short Oneg. Saturday afternoon from 2-3:30pm: Yosl Kurland will present an introduction to Yiddish language by means of songs and games to convey a bit of vocabulary and a taste of a Jewish way of looking at the world as reflected in the language. [Both Saturday daytime events are FREE & open to ALL!!]

Saturday evening (7-10pm) BIG concert & dance party!! Featuring Yiddish songs and klezmer music by Christina & Yosl & Margot, plus Klezmer & Sephardic music by The Rebbe's Orkestra with special guest clarinetist Margot Leverett. After the sit-down portion of the concert, the chairs will be pushed back for music & dancing with friends from The Community Klezmer band & Rikud joining the guest artists and The Rebbe's Orkestra for a klezmer dance party you won't forget!! [Tix at the door: $20-general / $18-seniors, students & fixed income. Advanced tix are $18-all ages, plus $1.00 handling fee @ Bookworks, 4022 Rio Grande Blvd. N.W. (505)344-8139 & @ Natural Sound, 4011 Central Ave. N.E., in Nob Hill (505) 255-8295 --OR call: (505)243-6276 to reserve tickets].

Sunday, February 20th: THREE workshops in klezmer music & dance from 10am-5pm featuring all 3 guest artists. PLUS a special catered 'Lunch 'n Learn' featuring Fulbright Scholar Christina Crowder's research in Romania and Moldavia. Full class descriptions follow .

10-11:30am: Choose 1 of 3 Classes in klezmer music or dance ($20-general, $15-fixed income/under 18):

1- Yosl: Traditional dance style for dancing at a Jewish wedding: How to move in an old country Jewish dance way, gestures, posture, getting the music to move through your body. Some traditional uses of wedding dance including 'kosher tants' with the bride, how to lift the bride and groom in chairs safely and comfortably, 'mitzve tants' with mime, entertaining the bride and groom with dance, and 'krenzl' (dance to honor the parents).

2- Margot: A closer look at klezmer clarinetist Sid Beckerman's (z"l) life and his music. Be prepared to learn one of his tunes too via his protégé Margot.

3- Christina: will teach a short class till 11am & then play music for Yosl's dance class: Ensemble playing in Klezmer Music: Learn to go 'beyond the page' to add rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic texture to traditional Jewish dance melodies in the context of large and small ensembles. Students will be introduced to the skills necessary to work with a basic 'lead sheet' (main melody with chords) to develop accompaniment patterns, harmonic lines and fills. Advance material will be provided to learn one tune from the repertoire of the Wholesale Klezmer Band.

Noon-1:30: 'Lunch 'n Learn' featuring scholar Christina Crowder [minimum $10-$15 suggested donation]: Enjoy a delicious catered 'milkhik' lunch (NO meat / YES: fish, eggs, dairy & lots of veggie foods), following lunch there will be a presentation. Christina and her husband John were Fulbright scholars in Romania from 1999-2001. During their project, they collected field recordings of non-Jewish musicians playing Jewish and Romanian repertoire, printed source material, and commercial recordings (LPs and 78rpm gramophone records). This presentation will feature some of the field recordings collected in northern Romania-Maramures and Bukovina, gramophone recordings, and a discussion of on-going research to understand the ways in which Jewish music influenced, and was influenced by local musics from Moldavia and Bessarabia (the eastern part of present-day Romania and the Republic of Moldova respectively).

1:45-3:15: Choose ONE workshop in klezmer music OR dance ($20-general, $15-fixed income/under 18):

1- Margot - music from Moldovia & Carpathian regions. With work on the Doina (improvisation). 2- Dance w/ Yosl: Broyges Tants - The dance of anger and reconciliation, traditionally done by the mothers of the bride and groom to teach the couple a lesson about living together. We will go over the basic structure of the dance, and work more intensively on creative improvisation. These days, most mothers of brides and grooms do not know how to do this dance. If there's time he will also teach some wedding traditions such as bazingn/baveynen di kale, and the khosn's tish."

3:30-5:00: Workshop in klezmer music ($20-general, $15-fixed income/under 18): 1- Christina - music: This session will continue the 'Beyond the Page' workshop from the morning session. We will work on a second tune from the repertoire of the Wholesale Klezmer Band to develop strategies to elaborate a basic melody using rhythm, harmony, and melody. Advance material will be provided.

The advanced registration discount for ALL events (3 workshops, 1 Lunch 'n Learn, and 2 concerts/dance parties) is $85.00-general / $70-seniors, students & fixed income.

Registration and payment MUST be received BY Friday, February 11th for this discount.

On-line payment with paypal and downloadable registration forms are available at www.nahalatshalom.org Klick on "KlezmerQuerque 2011"

For detailed information about class times, prices, tickets & registration contact:
Beth Cohen, KlezmerQuerque Koordinator (505)243-6276 cohenedmunds@netzero.net
Web: www.nahalatshalom.org Klick on "KlezmerQuerque 2011"

All events take place at Congregation Nahalat Shalom, 3606 Rio Grande Blvd. NW (between Candelaria & Griegos) in Albuquerque, NM 87107 Posted by jmwc at January 11, 2011 10:47 AM