Abstracts
Music of Worship and Celebration among the Abayudaya
(Jewish People) of Uganda
Jeffrey A. Summit, Tufts University
The Abayudaya, a community of approximately 600 Bantu people living in villages
surrounding Mbale in Eastern Uganda, live as practicing Jews. Many members scrupulously
follow Jewish ritual, observe the laws of the Sabbath, celebrate Jewish holidays,
keep kosher and pray in Hebrew. This community self-converted to Judaism in
1919 and originally constructed their Jewish practice and liturgy in contra-distinction
to Christian missionary activity and British political rule. Presently, their
contact with North American Jewry is increasing and the Abayudaya are incorporating
Ashkenazi chant and melodies and contemporary American Jewish music into their
liturgy. At the same time, many members of their community compose liturgical
and celebratory music in styles influenced by Christian churches in Uganda and
Kenya and styles of East African popular music. In this paper, I examine the
Abayudaya's strategic process of choosing and composing liturgical music as
they standardize their own liturgical practice and position themselves in relation
to Jewish communities in North America and Israel.
Maintaining Jewish Communities Through Music
Kay Kaufman Shelemay, Harvard University
While Jewish communities are founded and maintained through shared aspects of
descent and belief, their musical practices are in fact quite heterogeneous.
This paper, drawing mainly on a case study of the Syrian-Jewish pizmon tradition,
focuses on important ways in which a distinctive musical style can serve to
sustain a Jewish community over time.
From Catering Hall to Concert Hall and Back: Philadelphia's
Jewish Musicians, 1915-1960
Hankus Netsky, New England Conservatory
This essay addresses the idea of the Jewish wedding music scene as a kind of
home base for Jewish musicians in twentieth-century Philadelphia. I will follow
the offspring of three musical families with "klezmer" roots, as they build
their careers in classical, popular, and other performance styles, and show
how their attitudes toward the traditional Jewish wedding music scene figure
into their varied musical and social aspirations. To what extent was their knowledge
of the "klezmer" repertoire a basic fact of musical identity for these musicians?
How did they regard the colorful and chaotic folk tradition of their musical
ancestors? How did the special "brotherhood" that existed between wedding musicians
and the kinetic energy of the European-style communal celebration influence
the later careers of these individuals, and to what extent did they see the
necessity to return, even if only occasionally, to their klezmer roots? I believe
that, by exploring such questions, one can gain a wealth of insight into an
important aspect of our musical heritage
All in the Family: Early Jewish - American Popular
Song
Mark Slobin, Wesleyan University
We often think of the period from 1910 to 1940 as an age of increasing acculturation
and even tentative assimilation of the massive wave of Jewish immigrants who
arrived in the United States. Deborah Dash Moore titled her book about the 1920s
and 30s "at home in America" to reinforce this view. Henry Sapoznik's vision
of the history of klezmer sees it moving more and more into the American orbit,
with musicians changing shers and freylekhs into swingtime. Over and over we
hear the story of Irving Berlin walking out of his lower east side habitat by
finding the door to the 14th Street offices of the music industry. Again and
again, George Gershwin turns his back on Yiddish theater to face Broadway, even
as Al Jolson, in the film called "The Jazz Singer," forsakes the cantorate for
vaudeville stardom, something he and many others did in real life. While I have
no real quarrel with this narrative, the paper prefers to showcase music and
entertainment products that were interested in putting the brakes on the Jews'
headlong acceleration into assimilation. I'll start back with some early Yiddish
theater songs, then move to the 1920s and 1930s, including some clips from the
golden age of Yiddish cinema.
The Modern Odyssey of the Judeo-Spanish Folksong
Edwin Seroussi,
Hebrew University, Jerusalem
The traditional song of the Sephardi Jews, i.e. the descendants of the Jews
expelled from Spain and Portugal who settled around the Mediterranean since
the late 15th century, attracts today wide attention throughout the world. Distributed
in commercial recordings usually under the label of "World Music", the geographical
and historical provenance of these Sephardi songs (or Ladino songs, after the
popular name of the Judeo-Spanish dialect) are the object of the most disparate
assumptions. One reason for such assumptions is the frequent and erratic migrations
of songs and musicians from this tradition over relatively short periods of
time since the late 19th century. This presentation treats the sources and the
ideological foundations of the imagined geographies and historical narratives
attributed to the repertoire of Judeo-Spanish folksongs that circulates nowadays
as a commodity within the world music industry. To demonstrate some of the theoretical
issues raised by the paper, an "archeology" of selected songs will be offered.
Creativity in Captivity: Viktor Ullmann's Der Kaiser
von Atlantis
Rachel Bergman, Yale University
Viktor Ullmann (1898-1944), a Jewish, Austro-Hungarian composer who was killed
in the Holocaust, spent the final and perhaps most productive years of his life
in Theresienstadt (or "Terezin"), a "model" concentration camp just north of
Prague that allowed, and eventually encouraged, musical activity. Ullmann's
music from this period reflects his greater preoccupation with death and with
his Jewish identity, as seen most clearly in, though not limited to, his choice
of texts. Ullmann's chamber opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis oder der Tod dankt
ab (The Emperor of Atlantis or Death Abdicates) is arguably his most momentous
Theresienstadt work. The extraordinary circumstances surrounding the opera's
creation are reflected on many levels, from the unusual orchestration (including
banjo and harpsichord) to the use of musical quotations (including a distorted,
minor key version of the Nazi anthem Deutschland, Deutschland über alles). Most
poignant, perhaps, is the highly allegorical story, written by librettist and
fellow inmate Peter Kien, depicting a world where life and death no longer have
any meaning. This work is a testament to the power of art to serve as spiritual
resistance against the dehumanizing conditions of a concentration camp.
Sephardic Liturgical Music: Diversity and Uniqueness
Mark Kligman, Hebrew Union College--Jewish Institute
of Religion
Sephardic liturgical music is a true reflection of the cultural diversity of
Sephardic Jews. By focusing on the liturgical traditions of European and Middle
Eastern Jewish communities demonstrates the similarities and differences of
Sephardic practices. The Spanish and Portuguese tradition is Western in its
approach to liturgical music with melodies that are stylisticaly Western. The
Moroccan, or North African Tradition, contains some Western musical elements
but mixed with the Andalusian Spanish style producing ornate melodic patterns.
The Middle Eastern Jewish tradition, known as "Yerushalmi Sephardim," displays
considerably more Arab influence. The Turkish or Ottoman Jewish tradition reflects
a different but related musical tradition that contains elements of Arab, Spanish
and Balkan styles. This presentation will focus on liturgical music in three
areas: cantillation, liturgical song and piyyutim. Audio examples from various
traditions will be played to demonstrate the diverse musical styles.
The Styles of East-Ashkenazi Jewish Liturgical
Music: Between Written and Oral
Judit Frigyesi, Bar Ilan University
Western art music is primarily thought of as a repertory of "pieces," whose
sources are written documents. When dealing with such a repertory it seems possible,
although not always meaningful to separate the music from its life, that is,
its transmission and performance practice. On the basis of the score we can
safely talk about rhythm, scales, melodic patterns, and the like, characterizing
these parameters in a more or less exact manner. While the same musical parameters
exist in the oral tradition, here exact characterizations are not possible.
When analyzing an oral music culture, one has to use words like "typical," "possible,"
"likely," and "unusual". What defines musical style? Are the collection of scales
and rhythmic motives the determining aspects of style or rather the life of
the musical material, that is: the rules that govern to what extent and how
scales and rhythmic motives are changed with each performance? Should we draw
the dividing line in the Ashkenazi tradition according to the concrete elements
of music or according to the community's manner of using them? How can we divide
the enormously varied musical tradition of the Ashkenazim: should it be along
geographical areas, along differences between religious groups (such as the
various sects of the Hasidim, Orthodox, reform), along liturgical and secular
functions, or along the practices of music? To answer these questions is especially
difficult because Ashkenazi music stands between oral and written tradition.
Versions of the orally transmitted pieces have been notated, and as a result,
in many communities the tradition has taken on the character of a fixed musical
repertory, while oral transmission remained the norm in others. This paper will
summarize the conceptual problems and propose a possible division of styles
within Ashkenazi liturgical music.
Bringing the Bride to Tears
Craig Harwood, Yale University
Of all the rituals connected with the eastern European Jewish wedding, the one
that perhaps seems the furthest removed from our contemporary sensibilities
is the kale baveynen: the custom of bringing the bride to tears. This ceremony
took place shortly before the walk to the chuppah, with the bride seated in
the manner of a queen and surrounded by the women of the community. The badchen,
or wedding poet, would recite an improvised poem in rhymed couplets, which the
musicians would punctuate with an emotional melody, all intended to make the
bride cry. Following its original role as part of the traditional Jewish wedding
ceremony, the kale baveynen emerged in a number of other contexts. Namely, it
appeared in the early 20th century Yiddish theater, particularly in America
where recently immigrated Jews expected every theatrical production to include
a wedding scene. It is also represented in the performances of artists such
as clarinetist Dave Tarras, who removed the kale baveynen from the wedding scene
altogether by recording artistic instrumental interpretations of the ceremonial
music, now devoid of the rhymed verses of the badchen. Still, very little is
known about the kale baveynen: how the music is organized, what defines it as
a uniquely Jewish genre, and how it developed to suit its changing cultural
role. This paper will explore some of the elements that define the genre, and
how it transformed and mutated to conform to the changing sensibilities of the
increasingly Americanized Jewish culture.
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