Sixth Annual Humboldt Jewish Music & Culture Festival 2024:
A Weekend of Workshops, a Dance Party and a Concert
Sponsored by Temple Beth El
featuring international klezmer stars:
Michael Alpert, Sasha Lurje & Craig Judelman
Presenting music of the Jewish-Ukrainian Heartland:
Ukraine is one of the main heartlands of Yiddish culture, a large and diverse land where Ashkenazi culture thrived and developed with influences from Ukrainian, Polish, Greco-Ottoman, Tater, Hutsul and other cultures. The land that gave us Sholem Aleichem, Isaac Babel, the Baal Shem Tov and more also gave us an incredibly diverse repertoire of songs, from secular to religious, folk to theater and the rich underworld songs of Odessa as well as some of the most important collections of klezmer dance tunes. This year our featured guests will center music and dance from this rich and troubled land in their workshops and concert, giving the community an opportunity to immerse ourselves in this beautiful corner of ‘Yiddishland’.
Fri., Jan 31: (TBE Members and Guests only)
6:30 – 9 PM Klezmer Shabbat service followed by Kiddish, led by Rabbi Steinberg with musicians Craig Judelman, Sasha Lurje and Michael Alpert
Our featured guests join the community to bring their down home Yiddishkayt to Shabbos (Yiddish for Shabbat) services and Kiddush. This will be followed by a “Shabbos tish (table)” where we will sit together and sing nigunim (wordless melodies) and other Yiddish Shabbos songs, get to know the Festival’s featured performers, hear Yiddish stories and jokes and share our own stories and family histories.
Sat., Feb 1st
11am – 12:30pm
Workshop 1: (For singers and non-singers)
Yiddish Folk Songs: Style and Substance, with Michael Alpert
This workshop will explore a Yiddish ballad and go deeply into its context, form and the stylistic nuances of unaccompanied Yiddish lyric singing. It will be interesting for singers of all levels of experience as well as non-singers. It will be of particular interest to people with some experience in folk singing who want to deepen their knowledge of Yiddish balladry, gain tools for singing Yiddish songs and understand what makes Yiddish singing unique.
Workshop 2: (For instrumentalists)
Melody and Rhythm with Yiddish “Tam” (flavor) with Craig Judelman
Many klezmer melodies are shared by other cultures – Greek, Ukrainian, Romanian and others – so what makes them really feel like klezmer is the way we play them. This workshop will focus on things like phrasing, ornamentation, timing and gestures to take some relatively simple melodies and give them the Yiddish “tam” (flavor). We will focus on melodies but also address groove. Open to musicians of all levels who have basic facility on their instrument.
12:30-1:30pm Lunch (Reservations required)
2-3:30pm
Workshop 3: (for singers and non-singers)
Yiddish Songs: Folk and Theater, Revelry, Romance and Resistance with Sasha Lurje
This workshop will present and contextualize an overview of Yiddish song repertoire from folk to theater, songs of resistance and workers songs to celebratory songs for group singing and sad songs of unrequited love. It will be interesting for singers of all levels of experience and also for those who don’t consider themselves singers but appreciate a good song or just want to enhance their understanding of Yiddish song in all its diversity.
Workshop 4: (For instrumentalists)
Playing for Dancers with Craig Judelman & Michael Alpert
This workshop will address the primary function of klezmer music, to get people dancing and facilitate a joyful, intergenerational community experience on the dance floor. We’ll explore the two most common Ashkenazi dances, bulgar and freilekhs and focus on how to play the melody and accompaniment in a way that makes the traditional dances really rock. Musicians can join in playing certain songs for the Yiddish Dance Party later in the evening.
4pm:
Workshop 5: In the Field: Our Travels Preserving Yiddish Heritage – talk and musical demonstrations
with Sasha Lurje, Craig Judelman, Michael Alpert.
This session will present an overview with musical demonstrations of Yiddish music and dance focusing on the context, key elements, and nature of communication and expression within the performers and/or dancers. If time permits, the artists will also discuss their research, projects and the diverse ways the artist’s work with source materials. This session will be somewhat open-ended, and participants are encouraged to bring questions about Yiddish culture and our esteemed guests will do their best to respond to the interests of participants while also giving an overview of Yiddish culture and their decades of work to explore, present, teach and continue developing this important heritage.
5:30-6:30 Middle-Eastern Dinner (Reservations required)
7pm
Yiddish Dance Party! Live Music and Dance Instruction, no experience necessary! with Sasha Lurje, Craig Judelman, Michael Alpert and special local guests
Yiddish (or Ashkenazi) dance is a wonderful combination of relatively simple dance steps with gestures from Ashkenazi and neighboring European cultures, designed to be accessible to people of all ages and mobilities. It’s a perfect expression of democracy and civility. Over the evening, we’ll explore Yiddish solo, line and circle dances with a focus on expression, style and connection to the music. No prior experience necessary. This will be a fun, relaxed evening where the community will have a chance to learn a bit about Yiddish dance from Sasha and Michael and enjoy klezmer music as it was meant to be enjoyed – on the dance floor!
Sun., Feb 2nd
11am-12:30pm
Workshop 6; Growing up in Post-Soviet Latvia vs. ‘Pre-Soviet’ California or, How to Become a Yiddish Star! with Sasha Lurje & Michael Alpert
Michael Alpert grew up in California in the 1960’s while Sasha Lurje grew up in Riga, Latvia in the 90’s. These two experiences appear as divergent as possible and yet both entered their 20’s with a strong interest in Yiddish culture and folklore, a deep connection to diverse Slavic cultures, and an array of background knowledge that helped them understand and synthesize the music they became obsessed with. This workshop will give these two beloved Yiddish singers a chance to tell their own stories, how they came to Yiddish, who their important teachers and mentors were. They will give a picture of the very different cultural, economic and social environments that nurtured them, perspectives on Judaism and Yiddishkayt they encountered, and important revelations or understandings they gained along the way. Moderated by Craig Judelman, they will do their best to leave an opportunity for questions at the end of the session or after the concert. Don’t miss this rare chance to go behind the scenes with these international stars of the Yiddish music world!
12:30-1:30pm Lunch ( reservations required)
2 – 3:30pm
Concert followed by 30-minute talk with musicians
Songs of the Jewish Ukrainian Heartland with Michael Alpert, Sasha Lurje & Craig Judelman
As war rages on in one of the cradles of Yiddish culture, we join together to sing songs and tell the stories of our shared homeland. Tales of forbidden loves, boy soldiers, the wonders of nature and looming danger, these songs of past centuries have rarely been more tragically relevant. Ukraine is a heartland of Yiddish music and the source of many of our most important collections of old-time klezmer tunes.
In this program, three of the world’s most in-demand Klezmer musicians and Yiddish singers bring this diverse repertoire together with their own new songs and tunes to paint a picture of Jewish life in Ukraine then and now, and stand in solidarity with friends and colleagues who are currently fighting for their freedom.
Michael Alpert is one of the best-known contemporary Yiddish culture-bearers and has been at the forefront of the international revitalization of Yiddish music and dance since the 1970’s. A National Heritage Fellow known for his work with Brave Old World, Kapelye, and Itzhak Perlman among others, he is joined by two of the driving forces in the vibrant Berlin klezmer scene. Celebrated Latvian vocalist Sasha Lurje and American violinist/composer Craig Judelman have built their reputations on both sides of the Atlantic for their impactful work as educators and performers, particularly invested in exploring the points of intersection between Ashkenazi Jews and their historic neighbors.
After teaching and performing together at festivals and workshops around the world, from Lviv to São Paulo, Kraków, New York and beyond, these virtuosic and captivating musicians join together to stand in solidarity and raise awareness of the beautiful culture that developed over centuries in this diverse, multi-ethnic land. Highlighting the deep connections between Ukrainian and Ashkenazi culture and the historic parallels to the current invasion, this program captures the pain and beauty that produced these rich traditions, giving a personal and artistic expression to the incomprehensible brutality of war.
BIOS:
Michael Alpert has been a transformative figure i the renaissance of East European Jewish klezmer music and Yiddish culture since the 1970s and is a National Heritage Fellow of the United States – the nation’s highest honor in the traditional and heritage arts. Multi-instrumentalist, singer, ethnographer, scholar and educator, he is internationally known for award-winning performances and recordings with Brave Old World, Itzhak Perlman, Andy Statman, Daniel Kahn, So-called and many others. A native Yiddish speaker and bridge to pre-WWI East European Jewish musicians, Alpert is a foremost traditional Yiddish singer and composer of new Yiddish songs but also renowned as a dancer, fiddler, guitarist and much more. With broad knowledge of the music’s and languages of Europe and the Americas, he has been both instrumental and vocal in transmitting East European Jewish culture to new generations. Alpert was Musical Director of the Emmy-winning PBS Great Performances special Itzhak Perlman: In the Fiddler’s House and is featured in film and media worldwide. He is translator and co- editor of Soviet Jewish ethnomusicologist Moyshe Beregovsky’s Jewish Instrumental Folk Music, and his own fieldwork recordings reside at the US Library of Congress. Hailing from both California and New England, he is now tri-coastal, at home on the coast of Scotland with literary scholar Emily Finer and two mist-shrouded cats.
Sasha Lurje was born in Riga Latvia, and when a friend invited her to join a youth theater focusing on Yiddish work, she didn’t realize how her life path had suddenly shifted.
Receiving early mentorship by many of the giants of the Yiddish music revival at several festivals in the former Soviet Union and Yiddish Summer Weimar in Germany propelled her to the forefront of the contemporary Yiddish scene. It wasn’t long before she joined her heroes on stage, and teaching hundreds of singers herself, making it her life’s work to spread Yiddish culture. Besides being a mainstay at many of the major festivals and workshops for Yiddish music, she performs in the highly renowned Semer Ensemble and her Yiddish progressive rock band Forshpil has made it clear to the next generation that this music isn’t just a delicate relic that belongs in a museum, but is rather a living cultural treasure trove ready to adapt and evolve as far as we will let it.
Craig Judelman grew up in Seattle where at age four he started playing violin. He was soon drawn to traditional folk cultures, studying Klezmer, Jazz, American and other folk music wherever he could. His passion for engaging with the sounds in old recordings and studying the cultures that surround the music have led him around the world, building a reputation as a master performer, organizer and educator in klezmer and old time American folk music on both sides of the Atlantic. Highlights of his recordings include ‘Have Moicy 2’ with Peter Stampfel (The Fugs) and ‘Old Man Below’ with his early mentor, John Cohen (The New Lost City Ramblers) which was released on Smithsonian Folkways in 2012. His current bands include an old time string band called ‘Interstate Express’, klezmer trio ‘Lebedik’, DRUZI Yiddish-Ukrainian Orchestra, and the Sklamberg, Lurje, Judelman Trio with Ms. Lurje and the Klezmatics’ Lorin Sklamberg. In 2022 Craig and Michael Alpert released a duo album In Der Heym / Down Home connecting Yiddish- Ukrainian and American folk music.
Watch a video of the trio:
Alpert Lurje Judelman – Songs of the Jewish Ukrainian Heartland
Meals:
Meals available upon pre-order and pre-payment must be by Wednesday Dec Jan. 29 at 12 noon.
Cost: Lunch $18, Dinner $20.
Lunch Sat., Feb 1: Two vegetarian soups, two salads, bread, cookies and fruit.
Dinner Sat Feb 1:
Choice of two Middle Eastern dinners catered by Falafelove in King Salmon. Dinner meal choice deadline is Wednesday, January 29th at 12pm.
Choice One: Chicken dinner with rice, sides of hummus, baba ghanoush, carrots and salad, pita bread and baklava.
Choice Two: Falafel plate with rice, sides of hummus, baba ghanoush, carrots and salad, pita bread and baklava
Lunch Sun Feb 2: Vegetarian lasagna, garlic bread, green salad, fruit salad with yogurt and toppings.
Shabbat Shira: An Evening of Songs for the Soul with Rabbi Naomi Steinberg
Friday, February 7 at 7 PM
Free – Ticket required – Get your ticket here.
Featuring original compositions and arrangements by Rabbi Steinberg
In honor of Shabbat Shira, the Sabbath of Song, the Temple Beth El Choir and Soloists will offer an inspiring program of beautiful songs composed, translated or arranged by Rabbi Naomi. For more than twenty years Rabbi Naomi has collaborated with Temple singers and musicians to bring forth new melodies and poetic lyrics to celebrate Shabbat. Drawing on special verses in the Book of Psalms, other traditional texts, and insights of medieval mystics, Rabbi Naomi and the Choir have created a unique collection of uplifting songs.
Baghdad to Brooklyn: Jewish Music from Around the World with Ellie Shapiro, PhD
Four sessions in February: 4, 11, 18, 25 from 7-8:30 PM on Zoom.
$60 for the series. Purchase tickets here.
Music offers a unique means of engaging emotion and spirituality, social solidarity, and cultural affirmation. It also demonstrates the mutual influences experienced by cultures living in proximity to one another over time. Spread throughout the world over two millennia, Jewish music has evolved into myriad traditions as well as innovative creative forms. This four-session series will explore highlights of this rich musical legacy, focusing on the modern era.
Eleanor Shapiro, PhD, produced the Jewish Music Festival in Berkeley for almost two decades. Prior to that she worked in Israel as a teacher and journalist for nine years. More recently, her scholarship has focused on Jewish-Polish relations, expressed through Jewish culture festivals that take place currently in Polish small towns.
This class is independent of the 6th Annual Humboldt Jewish Music & Culture Festival.