Alicia Svigals (born January 8, 1963) is an American
violin
The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
ist and
composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
Etymology and Defi ...
. A co-founder of the Grammy-winning band
The Klezmatics
The Klezmatics are an American klezmer music group based in New York City, who have achieved fame singing in several languages, most notably mixing older Yiddish tunes with other types of more contemporary music of differing origins. They have ...
, she is considered by many to be the world's foremost living
klezmer
Klezmer ( yi, קלעזמער or ) is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. The essential elements of the tradition include dance tunes, ritual melodies, and virtuosic improvisations played for l ...
fiddler.
Early life
Alicia Svigals, violinist, composer and vocalist, was born on January 8, 1963 in
The Bronx
The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...
, New York City and studied ethnomusicology at
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
.
Career
During the 1980s and 1990s, she studied with older klezmer violinist
Leon Schwartz with the intent of reviving the style and technique of the klezmer violin tradition which had largely disappeared, and of which few recorded examples remain. Although classically trained since childhood, she also travelled around Europe and Israel in her youth and tried to learn local styles. Of her playing style, she said that it is "a combination of old fiddle style, clarinet technique, and this sort of Greek-Turkish timbre
.. it'shalf reconstructed-half invented."
She has taught klezmer to hundreds of students around the world over the past two decades, including violinists
Steven Greenman and
Itzhak Perlman
Itzhak Perlman ( he, יצחק פרלמן; born August 31, 1945) is an Israeli-American violinist widely considered one of the greatest violinists in the world. Perlman has performed worldwide and throughout the United States, in venues that hav ...
.
Svigals was one of the founders in 1986 of the band the Klezmatics, and co-led the ensemble until 2001. With them, she appeared on ''
A Prairie Home Companion
''A Prairie Home Companion'' is a weekly radio variety show created and hosted by Garrison Keillor that aired live from 1974 to 2016. In 2016, musician Chris Thile took over as host, and the successor show was eventually renamed ''Live from He ...
'', Rosie O'Donnell's ''
Kids are Punny'', ''
Good Morning America
''Good Morning America'' (often abbreviated as ''GMA'') is an American morning television program that is broadcast on ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends with the debut of a Sunday edition on January 3, 1993. Th ...
'',
MTV News
MTV News is the news production division of MTV. The service is available in the US with localized versions on MTV's global network. In February 2016, MTV Networks confirmed it would refresh the MTV News brand in 2016, to compete with the likes ...
,
Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television television channel, channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its List of assets owned by Param ...
, and NPR's ''
New Sound'' and ''
Weekend Edition
''Weekend Edition'' is a set of American radio news magazine programs produced and distributed by National Public Radio (NPR). It is the weekend counterpart to the NPR radio program ''Morning Edition''. It consists of ''Weekend Edition Saturday'' ...
''. As a composer for the group, she provided music for the play ''
A Dybbuk'' by
Tony Kushner
Anthony Robert Kushner (born July 16, 1956) is an American author, playwright, and screenwriter. Lauded for his work on stage he's most known for his seminal work ''Angels in America'' which earned a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award. At the turn ...
, and collaborations with poet
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
and
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
i singer
Chava Alberstein
Chava Alberstein ( he, חוה אלברשטיין, born 8 December 1946 in Poland) is an Israeli musician, lyricist, composer, and musical arranger.
Biography
Born Ewa Alberstein in Szczecin, Poland, her name was Hebraized to Chava when she ...
. They also performed with Itzhak Perlman on
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
' Emmy-winning Great Performances documentary ''
In the Fiddler's House
Itzhak Perlman ( he, יצחק פרלמן; born August 31, 1945) is an Israeli-American violinist widely considered one of the greatest violinists in the world. Perlman has performed worldwide and throughout the United States, in venues that hav ...
'' and on the ''
Late Show with David Letterman
The ''Late Show with David Letterman'' is an American late-night talk show hosted by David Letterman on CBS, the first iteration of the The Late Show (franchise), ''Late Show'' franchise. The show debuted on August 30, 1993, and was produced by ...
'', and appeared together in concert at
Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue and Theater (structure), theater at 1260 Sixth Avenue (Manhattan), Avenue of the Americas, within Rockefeller Center, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Nicknamed "The Showplac ...
,
Tanglewood
Tanglewood is a music venue in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. It has been the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1937. Tanglewood is also home to three music schools: the T ...
, and
Wolf Trap
A wolf trap (Spanish ''lobera'', Italian ''luparia'') was a chase ending in a pit with trapdoor and stakes used by beaters in hunting wolves in medieval Europe.Towards a History of the Basque Language José Ignacio Hualde, Joseba A. Lakarra, Rob ...
.
Svigals has been commissioned to compose for the
Kronos Quartet
The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for almost 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classic ...
, as well as recording for the television series
The L Word
''The L Word'' is a television drama that aired on Showtime from January 18, 2004 to March 8, 2009. The series follows the lives of a group of lesbian and bisexual women who live in West Hollywood, California. The premise originated with Ilene Ch ...
. She was awarded the Foundation for Jewish Culture's 2013 New Jewish Culture Network commission for her original score to the 1918 silent Pola Negri film The Yellow Ticket. In 2014 she was an NEA MacDowell Fellow in composition, and a fellow at LABA: A Laboratory for Jewish Culture.
She is featured on recordings by such
Hasidic
Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism (Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות ''Ḥăsīdus'', ; originally, "piety"), is a Jewish religious group that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory of contem ...
artists such as
Avraham Fried
Avraham Shabsi Hakohen Friedman ( he, אברהם שבתי הכהן פרידמן, born March 22, 1959) better known by his stage name, Avraham Fried, is a popular musical entertainer in the Orthodox Jewish community.
Career
Fried was encourag ...
and
Lipa Schmeltzer
Lipa Schmeltzer ( yi, אלעזר ליפא שמעלצער ''Elazar Lipa Schmeltzer'', he, ליפא שמלצר; born March 17, 1978) is an American singer, entertainer, and composer. He is a headliner in Hasidic as well as modern Jewish communi ...
. She has collaborated with 'second generation' author
Thane Rosenbaum
Thane Rosenbaum (born 1960) is an American novelist, essayist, and Distinguished University Professor. He is the director of the Forum on Life, Culture, & Society, hosted by Touro College. Rosenbaum is also the Legal Analyst for CBS News Radio ...
, whose novel ''
The Golems of Gotham'' is based in part on Svigals. She is featured on
Herb Alpert
Herb Alpert (born March 31, 1935) is an American trumpeter who led the band Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass in the 1960s. During the same decade, he co-founded A&M Records with Jerry Moss. Alpert has recorded 28 albums that have landed on the ...
’s 2008 recording of the Yiddish theater song "
Belz
Belz ( uk, Белз; pl, Bełz; yi, בעלז ') is a small city in Lviv Oblast of Western Ukraine, near the border with Poland, located between the Solokiya river (a tributary of the Bug River) and the Richytsia stream. Belz hosts the administ ...
", arranged by
Marvin Hamlisch
Marvin Frederick Hamlisch (June 2, 1944 – August 6, 2012) was an American composer and conductor. Hamlisch was one of only seventeen people to win Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards. This collection of all four is referred to as an " EGOT ...
. Other recording, performing and composing collaborators include Diane Birch, Gary Lucas, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, John Cale, Ben Folds, John Zorn, Debbie Friedman.
Personal life
Svigals also has a wedding and bat/bar mitzvah band that plays every genre of music, based in New York and
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
. She is a
lesbian
A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...
.
Notes
References
* ''Adventures in Yiddishland: Postvernacular Language and Culture'', Jeffery Shandler, p. 143, 232-233
* ''And We're All Brothers: Singing in Yiddish in Contemporary North America'', Abigail Wood
* ''American Klezmer: Its Roots and Offshoots'', Mark Slobin p. 140-142, 145, 156, 167, 174-5, 187-9, 191, 207, 218, 234
* ''Dictionnaire des Musiques: (Les Dictionnaires d'Universalis)''
* ''Ethnic American Literature: Comparing Chicano, Jewish, and African American Writing'', Dean J. Franco, p. 146, 212, 219
* ''Fiddler on the Move'', Mark Slobin p. 2, 47-51, 62, 74-75, 97-99, 107, 110, 118-28, 142, 145, 153
* ''Jews and Jazz: Improvising Ethnicity'', Charles B Hersch
* ''Jews and American Popular Culture: Music, theater, popular art, and literature'', Paul Buhle
* ''Klezmer America: Jewishness, Ethnicity, Modernity'', Jonathan Freedman
* ''Klezmer!: Jewish Music from Old World to Our World'', Henry Sapoznik
* ''North American Fiddle Music: A Research and Information Guide'', Drew Beisswenger p. 255, 880-889
* ''Shpil: The Art of Playing Klezmer'', Yale Strom p. 26, 111, 150-152
* ''The Book of Klezmer: The History, the Music, the Folklore'', Yale Strom, p. 193, 220-229, 373-374
* ''The Contemporary Violinist: Preface by Turtle Island String Quartet'', Julie Lyonn Lieberman
* ''The Fiddle Handbook'', Chris Haigh
* "The Klez Dispenser." In ''Something to Say: Thoughts on Art and Politics in America''. Klin, Richard and Lily Prince (photos). Leapfrog Press, 2011.
* ''The Essential Klezmer'', Seth Rogovoy, p. 7, 15, 38, 49, 75–6, 115, 117–123, 166, 191–3, 218, 228–9, 242, 247, 264–6, 280
* ''The New Jewish Leaders'', Jack Wertheimer, p. 196
* ''Von der Khupe zum Klezkamp'', Susan Bauer
* ''Which Side Are You On?: An Inside History of the Folk Music Revival in America'', Dick Weissman, p. 227
* ''Why Is America Different?: American Jewry on its 350th Anniversary'', Steven T. Katz
* ''World Music: Latin & North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific'', Simon Broughton
* ''Women and music in America since 1900: an encyclopedia, Volume 2'', Kristine Helen Burns
* You Should See Yourself': Jewish Identity in Postmodern American Culture'', Vincent Brook
External links
AliciaSvigals.comof Alicia Svigals' "Fidl" CD
{{DEFAULTSORT:Svigals, Alicia
1963 births
Jewish American musicians
Klezmer musicians
American lesbian musicians
LGBT Jews
LGBT people from New York (state)
People from the Bronx
Living people
The Klezmatics members
Jewish women musicians
20th-century LGBT people
21st-century LGBT people