Jewish Roots
The Anni Eisler-Lehman-Stiftung in Mainz
and IsraelIn 2001 I produced a festival in Mainz Germany called the "Woche der jüdischen Musik" (Week of Jewish Music) in cooperation with the Peter-Cornelius-Konservatorium, the City of Mainz and many other sponsors. The idea of the festival was born out of a musical development in Germany that began in the late 1980's and reached its zenith around the turn of the century. The rise of Klezmer as a popular, folkloristic, Jewish musical art form overrolled the German concert scene as it did in other countries as well. Klezmer music today often presents a romanticized picture of Jewish life and Yiddish culture in Eastern Europe up to the Shoah (Holocaust). The rebirth of interest in this culture, originating among Jews in the USA, led to resaerch including study of original recordings of the early 20th C.and interviews with eyewitness survivors who orally transmitted the melodies they more or less remembered from their youth. Much has been saved or reconstructed and documented in the form of sheetmusic and new recordings. There have also been very interesting and exciting further developments of this music in the contemporary music scenes around the world.
In Germany the phenomenon took on other dimensions due to the country's dark Nazi history of attempting to destroy the Jewish people between 1933 and 1945 and its subsequent turn to democracy and reconciliation. Klezmer groups popped up all over the country, singing in Yiddish and playing the popular niguns and freilachs. Some ensembles had Jewish musicians who had some understanding of the the cutlure they purported to transmit. Most German ensembles had no-one directly involved with Jewish culture. The music sold and quickly pushed all other music in some way Jewish into the shadows. To counteract this development I decided to produce the "Woche der jüdischen Musik." Concerts with programs of an Italien Baroque cantata in Hebrew on period instruments, avantgarde Klezmer Jazz from NY, a specialist ensemble for the obligatory traditional Klezmer music, Yiddish Lieder, Chamber Music of 20th C. music written by Jews, a vocal concert, a children's concert with Yiddish fairy tales and a symphonic orchestra concert presented just a few aspects of Jewish musical culture. Some of these were specifically Jewish in a liturgical sense, most were snapshots of Jewish musical creativity within the multitude of generally secular cutlural contexts in which the musicians and composers lived and worked.
During the research and conceptual stages of the planning of this festival I was priviledged to discover much music I had only suspected existed and I was priviledged to meet many compsers and performers. I made many new friends along the way and reconnected with some old friends. Without the help of the unique Jewish musical culture foundation in Mainz: Anni Eisler-Lehmann-Stiftung the festival would never have taken place. In the meantime a new form of Jewish musical tradition now exists in Mainz which consists of the cooperation of foundation scholarship holders, musicians and composers from all over the world and a cultural exchange between Israel and Germany.
The most active exchange is between myself and the Israeli composer Rachel Galinne. I have since produced concerts of her music as well as that of two other living women composers, Hagar Kadima, president of the Israeli Women Composer's Forum and Hila Tamir, a young and talented up and coming composer.
Through Rachel Galinne's support, I also met musicians from the Israeli Early Music scene. These included Micha Meltzer, Miri Singer, Orit Messer and Ye'ela Avital. I invited Ye'ela to come to Mainz with Yoni Haimovitch to take part in a project involving 50 Israeli children from Haifa and the Peter-Cornelius-Konservatorium Orchestra and Choir. Ye'ela asked me in turn to come to Israel to work with the start up baroque orchestra "Barrocade". This has since opened a new area of cooperation in Israel for me. It is truly a pleasure to work with the young, talented, excited musicians of this orchestra which is trying to make a place for itself in the multi-facetted but small cultural framework of Israel. (Of course it is also great eating homemade humus during the breaks or sitting outside looking at the Mediterranean Sea in the middle of january :-) )
Projects:
Hagar
Kadima
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Yoni
Haimovich