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Jewish Art Music Movement
The Jewish art music movement began at the end of the 19th century in Russia, with a group of Russian Jewish classical composers dedicated to preserving Jewish folk music and creating a new, characteristically Jewish genre of classical music. The music it produced used Western classical elements, featuring the rich chromatic harmonies of Russian late Romantic music, but with melodic, rhythmic and textual content taken from traditional Jewish folk or liturgical music. The group founded the St. Petersburg Society for Jewish Folk Music, a movement that spread to Moscow, Poland, Austria, and later Palestine and the United States. Although the original society existed formally for only 10 years (from 1908 to 1918), its impact on the course of Jewish music was profound. The society, and the art music movement it fostered, inspired a new interest in the music of Eastern European Jewry throughout Europe and America. It laid the foundations for the Jewish music and Klezmer revival in th ...
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Secular Jewish Music
Since Biblical times, music has held an important role in many Jews' lives. Jewish music has been influenced by surrounding Gentile traditions and Jewish sources preserved over time. Jewish musical contributions on the other hand tend to reflect the cultures of the countries in which Jews live, the most notable examples being European classical music, classical and popular music in the United States and Europe. However, other music is unique to particular Jewish communities, such as klezmer of Eastern Europe. Israeli music Modern Israeli music is heavily influenced by its constituents, which include Jewish immigrants from more than 120 countries around the world, which have brought their own musical traditions, making Israel a global melting pot. The Israeli music is very versatile and combines elements of both western and eastern music. It tends to be very eclectic and contains a wide variety of influences from the Diaspora and more modern cultural importation. Hassidic son ...
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Yiddish Theatre
Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Central European Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satiric or nostalgic revues; melodrama; naturalist drama; expressionist and modernist plays. At its height, its geographical scope was comparably broad: from the late 19th century until just before World War II, professional Yiddish theatre could be found throughout the heavily Jewish areas of Eastern and East Central Europe, but also in Berlin, London, Paris, Buenos Aires and New York City. Yiddish theatre's roots include the often satiric plays traditionally performed during religious holiday of Purim (known as Purimshpils); other masquerades such as the Dance of Death; the singing of cantors in the synagogues; Jewish secular song and dramatic improvisation; exposure to the theatre traditions of various European countries, and the Jewish literary culture that ...
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Abraham Goldfaden
Abraham Goldfaden (Yiddish: אַבֿרהם גאָלדפֿאַדען; born Avrum Goldnfoden; 24 July 1840 – 9 January 1908), also known as Avram Goldfaden, was a Russian-born Jewish poet, playwright, stage director and actor in the languages Yiddish and Hebrew, author of some 40 plays. Goldfaden is considered the father of modern Jewish theatre. In 1876 he founded in Romania what is generally credited as the world's first professional Yiddish-language theater troupe. He was also responsible for the first Hebrew-language play performed in the United States. The Avram Goldfaden Festival of Iaşi, Romania, is named and held in his honour. Jacob Sternberg called him "the Prince Charming who woke up the lethargic Romanian Jewish culture." Israil Bercovici wrote of his works: "we find points in common with what we now call 'total theater'. In many of his plays he alternates prose and verse, pantomime and dance, moments of acrobatics and some of ''jonglerie'', and even of spirituali ...
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Isaac Leib Peretz
Isaac Leib Peretz ( pl, Icchok Lejbusz Perec, yi, יצחק־לייבוש פרץ) (May 18, 1852 – April 3, 1915), also sometimes written Yitskhok Leybush Peretz was a Polish Jewish writer and playwright writing in Yiddish. Payson R. Stevens, Charles M. Levine, and Sol Steinmetz count him with Mendele Mokher Seforim and Sholem Aleichem as one of the three great classical Yiddish writers. Sol Liptzin wrote: "Yitzkhok Leibush Peretz was the great awakener of Yiddish-speaking Jewry and Sholom Aleichem its comforter.... Peretz aroused in his readers the will for self-emancipation, the will for resistance against the many humiliations to which they were being subjected."Liptzin, Sol (1985). A History of Yiddish Literature'. Middle Village, NY: Jonathan David Publishers. p. 56. Peretz rejected cultural universalism, seeing the world as composed of different nations, each with its own character. In Liptzin's account, " ery people is seen by him to be a chosen people, chosen by its pecul ...
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Cantor
A cantor or chanter is a person who leads people in singing or sometimes in prayer. In formal Jewish worship, a cantor is a person who sings solo verses or passages to which the choir or congregation responds. In Judaism, a cantor sings and leads congregants in prayer in Jewish religious services; sometimes called a hazzan. A cantor in Reform and Conservative Judaism, just like in Orthodox Judaism, goes through years of extensive religious education, similar to that of a Rabbi, in order to become an officially recognized cantor. They often come from a long line of cantors in their family; born with a natural gift of singing with incredible vocal range. The term itself was shaped by the Latin term for "singer," but is not an inherently Latin word. It is frequently used to translate a range of equivalent terms in other languages, such as for the leader of singing on a traditional Kerala snake boat, a Chundan Vallam. A similar term is precentor, defined as a leader of the singing of ...
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Leopold Auer
Leopold von Auer ( hu, Auer Lipót; June 7, 1845July 15, 1930) was a Hungarian violinist, academic, conductor, composer, and instructor. Many of his students went on to become prominent concert performers and teachers. Early life and career Auer was born in Veszprém, Hungary, 7 June 1845,Fifield, Christopher, in Oxford Companion to Music, Alison Latham, ed., Oxford University Press, 2003 p. 70 to a poor Jewish household of painters. He first studied violin with a local concertmaster. He later wrote that the violin was a "logical instrument" for any (musically inclined) Hungarian boy to take up because it "didn't cost much." At the age of 8 Auer continued his violin studies with Dávid Ridley Kohne, who also came from Veszprém, at the Budapest Conservatory.Schwarz, p. 414 Kohne was concertmaster of the orchestra of the National Opera. A performance by Auer as soloist in the Mendelssohn violin concerto attracted the interest of some wealthy music lovers, who gave hi ...
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Mischa Elman
Mischa (Mikhail Saulovich) Elman (russian: Михаил Саулович Эльман; January 20, 1891April 5, 1967) was a Russian-born American violinist famed for his passionate style, beautiful tone, and impeccable artistry and musicality. Early life Moses or Moishe Elman was born to a Jewish family in Talnoye, Umansky Uyezd, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire (today Talne, Ukraine). His grandfather was a klezmer, or Jewish folk musician who also played the violin. It became apparent when Mischa was very young that he had perfect pitch, but his father hesitated about a career as a musician, since musicians were not very high on the social scale. He finally gave in, and gave Mischa a miniature violin, on which he soon learned several tunes by himself. Soon thereafter, he was taken to Odessa, where he studied at the Imperial Academy of Music. Pablo de Sarasate gave him a recommendation, stating that he could become one of the great talents of Europe. He auditioned for Leopold ...
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Efrem Zimbalist
Efrem Zimbalist Sr. ( – February 22, 1985) was a concert violinist, composer, conductor and director of the Curtis Institute of Music. Early life Efrem Zimbalist Sr. was born on April 9, 1888, O. S., equivalent to April 21, 1889, in the Gregorian calendar, as reported in many newspaper obituaries, in the southwestern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, the son of Jewish parents Maria (née Litvinoff) and Aron Zimbalist (Цимбалист, Russian pronunciation ), who was a conductor. By the age of nine, Efrem Zimbalist was first violin in his father's orchestra. At age 12 he entered the Saint Petersburg Conservatory and studied under Leopold Auer. He graduated from the Conservatory in 1907 after winning a gold medal and the Rubinstein Prize, and by age 21 was considered one of the world's greatest violinists. Career After graduation he debuted in Berlin (playing the Brahms Concerto) and London in 1907 and in the United States in 1911, with the Symphony Orchestra. In 1912, he pla ...
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Nathan Milstein
Nathan Mironovich Milstein ( – December 21, 1992) was a Russian-born American virtuoso violinist. Widely considered one of the finest violinists of the 20th century, Milstein was known for his interpretations of Bach's solo violin works and for works from the Romantic period. He was also known for his long career: he performed at a high level into his mid-80s, retiring only after suffering a broken hand. Biography Milstein was born in Odessa, Russian Empire, the fourth child of seven, to a middle-class Jewish family with no musical background. It was a concert by the 11-year-old Jascha Heifetz that inspired his parents to make a violinist out of Milstein. As a child of seven, he started violin studies (as suggested by his parents, to keep him out of mischief) with the eminent violin pedagogue Pyotr Stolyarsky, also the teacher of renowned violinist David Oistrakh. When Milstein was 11, Leopold Auer invited him to become one of his students at the St. Petersburg Conservator ...
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Jascha Heifetz
Jascha Heifetz (; December 10, 1987) was a Russian-born American violinist. Born in Vilnius, he moved while still a teenager to the United States, where his Carnegie Hall debut was rapturously received. He was a virtuoso since childhood. Fritz Kreisler, another leading violinist of the twentieth century, said after hearing Heifetz's debut, "We might as well take our fiddles and break them across our knees." He had a long and successful performing career; however, after an injury to his right (bowing) arm, he switched his focus to teaching. Late in life, Heifetz became a dedicated teacher and a champion of socio-political causes. He publicly advocated to establish 9-1-1 as an emergency phone number, and crusaded for clean air. He and his students at the University of Southern California protested smog by wearing gas masks, and in 1967, he converted his Renault passenger car into an electric vehicle. Early life Heifetz was born into a Lithuanian-Jewish family in Vilnius (Russia ...
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Mikhail Gnesin
Mikhail Fabianovich Gnessin (russian: Михаил Фабианович Гнесин; sometimes transcribed ''Gnesin''; 2 February .S. 21 January18835 May 1957)Sitsky, Larry. (1994) ''Music of the Repressed Russian Avant-Garde, 1900–1929,'' pp.242–243 & 247 Westport, CT: Greenwood Press was a Russian Jewish composer and teacher. Gnessin's works ''The Maccabeans'' and ''The Youth of Abraham'' earned him the nickname the "Jewish Glinka". Early life and education Gnessin was born in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, the son of Rabbi Fabian Osipovich Gnessin and Bella Isaevna Fletzinger. His grandfather Y'shayah was also a famous singer and Badchen (wedding entertainer) in Vilnius. Each of the Gnessin children appears to have possessed musical talent, and Gnessin's three elder sisters, Evgenia, Elena and Maria, all graduated with distinction from the Moscow Conservatory.Phillips, Anthony & Prokofiev, Sergey. (2006). "Sergey Prokofiev Diaries, 1907–1914: Prodigious Youth", p. 498 Ithaca: Cor ...
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Moscow Conservatory
The Moscow Conservatory, also officially Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory (russian: Московская государственная консерватория им. П. И. Чайковского, link=no) is a musical educational institution located in Moscow, Russia. It grants undergraduate and graduate degrees in musical performance and musical research. The conservatory offers various degrees including Bachelor of Music Performance, Master of Music and PhD in research. History It was co-founded in 1866 as the Moscow Imperial Conservatory by Nikolai Rubinstein and Prince Nikolai Troubetzkoy. It is the second oldest conservatory in Russia after the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was appointed professor of theory and harmony at its opening. Since 1940, the conservatory has borne his name. Choral faculty Prior to the October Revolution, the choral faculty of the conservatory was second to the Moscow Synodal School and Moscow Synodal Choir, bu ...
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