![Joel Rubin UVA Klezmer 2014 130](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Joel_Rubin_UVA_Klezmer_2014_130.jpg)
Joel Rubin is an American
clarinetist
This article lists notable musicians who have played the clarinet.
Classical clarinetists
* Laver Bariu
* Ernest Ačkun
* Luís Afonso
* Cristiano Alves
* Michel Arrignon
* Dimitri Ashkenazy
* Kinan Azmeh
* Alexander Bader
* Carl Baermann
* ...
,
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 ...
musician,
ethnomusicologist
Ethnomusicology is the study of music from the cultural and social aspects of the people who make it. It encompasses distinct theoretical and methodical approaches that emphasize cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dim ...
, and scholar of
Jewish music
Jewish music is the music and melodies of the Jewish people. There exist both traditions of religious music, as sung at the synagogue and domestic prayers, and of secular music, such as klezmer. While some elements of Jewish music may originat ...
.
Since becoming involved in the
Klezmer revival
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 ...
in the late 1970s, he has been researching, teaching and performing Klezmer music and related genres. He has been a member of, or performed with, such groups as
Brave Old World
Brave Old World is an American and German klezmer band. It formed in 1989.
Members hail from the US and Germany. ''The Washington Post'' called Brave Old World "the revival's first supergroup. Every player is a virtuoso.”
In 1992, the group w ...
, the Joel Rubin Ensemble, and
Veretski Pass
Veretskyi Pass or Verecke Pass ( uk, Вере́цький перевал, translit=Veretskyi pereval, more formally: uk, перевал Середньоверецький, translit=pereval Serednoveretskyi, label=none, also known as: uk, В ...
.
Biography
Early life and education
Joel Rubin was born in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
in 1955. His paternal grandfather, who was from
Kyiv
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
, was a guitarist and his maternal grandfather, who was from
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, was a passionate fan of classical music and opera. Both men instilled a love of music in him.
Rubin's father was a
Psychoanalyst
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: + . is a set of Theory, theories and Therapy, therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a bo ...
and his mother was a visual artist and painter.
From 1973 to 1975, Rubin studied classical clarinet with
Richard Stoltzman
Richard Leslie Stoltzman (born July 12, 1942) is an American clarinetist. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, he spent his early years in San Francisco, California, and Cincinnati, Ohio, graduating from Woodward High School in 1960. Today, Stoltzman is part ...
at the
California Institute of the Arts
The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of both ...
. Rubin was exposed to a wider range of
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
an music from
Bill Douglas
William Gerald Douglas (17 April 1934 – 18 June 1991) was a Scottish film director best known for the trilogy of films about his early life.
Biography
Born in Newcraighall on the outskirts of Edinburgh, he was brought up initially by his m ...
during that time.
In 1975 he relocated to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
where he studied with
Kalmen Opperman
Kalmen Opperman (December 8, 1919 – June 18, 2010) was an American clarinetist. He was a noted performer, teacher, conductor, mouthpiece and barrel maker (which he made only for his students), composer, and writer of numerous clarinet studies.
...
, who he continued to study with for several decades.
In 1978 he received a
BFA from the School of Music at the
State University of New York
The State University of New York (SUNY, , ) is a system of public colleges and universities in the State of New York. It is one of the largest comprehensive system of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States. Led by c ...
at Purchase. At around that time, he was experimenting with
Jazz music
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major f ...
and other more contemporary genres. He was often performing with Lisa Rose, a pianist who was interested in Jewish music, and when an acquaintance lent him a
Dave Tarras
Dave Tarras (c. 1895 – February 13, 1989) was a Ukrainian-born American klezmer clarinetist and bandleader, a celebrated klezmer musician, instrumental in Klezmer revival.
Biography Early life
Tarras was born David Tarasiuk in Teplyk, Ukrai ...
LPs he began to take a greater interest in
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 ...
music.
Music career
Rubin's career as a performer of Klezmer music began in 1980 in the Hester Street Klezmer band from
Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...
, as well as a duo with Lisa Rose called The Old Country. He said in a recent interview that few people in Portland at that time had any awareness of the genre.
At that time, old recordings were fairly difficult to find anywhere in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, so musicians would trade cassettes of
78-rpm
A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near ...
records from the 1920s or visit archives such as
YIVO
YIVO (Yiddish: , ) is an organization that preserves, studies, and teaches the cultural history of Jewish life throughout Eastern Europe, Germany, and Russia as well as orthography, lexicography, and other studies related to Yiddish. (The word '' ...
in New York.
KlezKamp KlezKamp was a yearly Klezmer music and Yiddish culture festival in New York State.
Produced by ethnomusicologist and award-winning record and radio producer Henry Sapoznik from 1985 - 2015, the program created an innovative and intensive environm ...
was founded in 1985, and he started teaching there annually. In
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
from 1986 to 1989 he played with the Joel Rubin Klezmer Band, which included
Michael Alpert
Michael Alpert (born 1954, Los Angeles, California) is a klezmer musician and Yiddish singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, scholar and educator who has been called a key figure in the klezmer revitalization, beginning in the 1970s.
He has ...
and
Stuart Brotman.
In 1988, he started a new duo with accordionist
Alan Bern
Alan Bern (Bloomington, Indiana, 1955) is an American Jewish composer, pianist, accordionist, educator and cultural activist, based in Berlin since 1987. He is the founding artistic director of Yiddish Summer Weimar and the Other Music Academy (OM ...
, which Brotman and Alpert soon joined as well; the group eventually became
Brave Old World
Brave Old World is an American and German klezmer band. It formed in 1989.
Members hail from the US and Germany. ''The Washington Post'' called Brave Old World "the revival's first supergroup. Every player is a virtuoso.”
In 1992, the group w ...
. Rubin moved to
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
in 1989; for the next three years, Brave Old World toured regularly in Europe, although in 1992 Rubin left the group.
In 1994, he founded his next project, which still performs to this day, the Joel Rubin Ensemble, which includes
Kálmán Balogh
Kálmán Balogh (born 18 January 1959) is a Hungarian cimbalom player and leader of Kalman Balogh's Gypsy Cimbalom Band.
History
Balogh is a Hungarian cimbalom player part of a lineage of Hungarian Gypsy musicians. A graduate of Franz Liszt ...
on cimbalom, David Chernyavsky on violin, and Claudio Jacomucci on accordion.
(The violinist in the ensemble was also
Steven Greenman for a time and is and currently
Mark Kovnatskiy). He also began to perform as a duo with Joshua Horowitz, who was living in
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
at the time. In 1994, he recorded a cd with Horowitz (''Bessarabian Symphony''). Both that 1994 album and his subsequent Joel Rubin Ensemble cd ''Beregovski’s Khasene'' (1997) drew heavily on melodies collected by
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
ethnomusicologist
Moisei Beregovsky
Moisei Iakovlevich Beregovsky (russian: Моисей Яковлевич Береговский, yi, משה אהרן בערעגאָווסקי; 1892–1961) was a Soviet Jewish folklorist and ethnomusicologist from Ukraine, who published mainly in ...
, which at that time were still not being performed much by
Klezmer revival
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 ...
musicians.
Since 2013, Rubin has been collaborating more frequently with the group
Veretski Pass
Veretskyi Pass or Verecke Pass ( uk, Вере́цький перевал, translit=Veretskyi pereval, more formally: uk, перевал Середньоверецький, translit=pereval Serednoveretskyi, label=none, also known as: uk, В ...
, releasing two albums with them, (2015) and ''The Magid Chronicles'' (2019), which was based on the work of
Sofia Magid
Sofia Magid ( ''Sofiya Davidovna Magid-Ékmekchi'', c. 1892-1954) was a Soviet Jewish ethnographer and folklorist whose career lasted from the 1920s to the 1950s. Among the materials she collected were folksongs of Volhynian and Belarusian Jews and ...
.
Over the years, Rubin has appeared on stage with a number of other traditional performers such as the
Epstein Brothers, Moshe “Moussa” Berlin,
Seymour Rexite
Seymour Rexite (January 18, 1914 – October 14, 2002), originally Shayele Rechtzeit, was a Polish American singer and actor. He was a significant figure in Yiddish theatre in the United States, and with his wife Miriam Kressyn he performed on th ...
and
Miriam Kressyn
Miriam Kressyn (March 4, 1910 – October 28, 1996), one of the "First Ladies of the Yiddish Theater", acted and sang on stage, film and radio; she wrote plays as well.
Personal life
Kressyn was born in Białystok, Poland, the seventh child of M ...
,
Leon Schwartz,
Sid Beckerman, Pete Sokolow, Danny Rubinstein, Ben Bazyler, and
Leopold Kozlowski,
Vladimir Terletsky
Vladimir Terletsky (in Russian Терлецкий Владимир Евгеньевич, in Yiddish – וועלוול טערלעצקי) was a musician, composer, conductor.
Terletsky (January 22, 1931 in Moscow, Soviet Union – July 22, 1 ...
and Bronya Sakina. He has also appeared with Klezmer revival groups such as the
Klezmer Conservatory Band
The Klezmer Conservatory Band is a Boston-based group which performs traditional klezmer music; it was formed by Hankus Netsky of the New England Conservatory of Music in 1980. Originally formed for a single concert, they have gone on to release el ...
,
Daniel Kahn & the Painted Bird
Daniel Kahn & the Painted Bird is a Germany-based klezmer band founded by Jewish-American singer-songwriter and actor Daniel Kahn, originally from Detroit, Michigan. The band was formed in 2005 and is based in Berlin. They have released five albu ...
,
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 ...
, and the Maxwell Street Klezmer Band. He has also directed some university klezmer ensembles, including the
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...
Klezmer Ensemble (of which he has been the director since 2006), the
Syracuse University
Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...
Klezmer Ensemble (in 2006), and the
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
Klezmer Ensemble (2003-6).
Research and teaching
Rubin has been teaching klezmer music since
KlezKamp KlezKamp was a yearly Klezmer music and Yiddish culture festival in New York State.
Produced by ethnomusicologist and award-winning record and radio producer Henry Sapoznik from 1985 - 2015, the program created an innovative and intensive environm ...
was founded in 1985. He noted in a recent interview that there was very little information available in English about klezmer at that time, which motivated him to begin his own research into the genre in the early 1980s.
Since then, he has become a prominent scholar of klezmer music,
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 ...
music, and related genres of
Jewish music
Jewish music is the music and melodies of the Jewish people. There exist both traditions of religious music, as sung at the synagogue and domestic prayers, and of secular music, such as klezmer. While some elements of Jewish music may originat ...
. He began collaborating with
Ethnomusicologist
Ethnomusicology is the study of music from the cultural and social aspects of the people who make it. It encompasses distinct theoretical and methodical approaches that emphasize cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dim ...
Rita Ottens in the early 1990s; they have since collaborated on a number of books.
Rubin's research into the
Epstein Brothers Orchestra
The Epstein Brothers Orchestra (also known as the Epstein Brothers) was a Jewish musical quartet from the United States who mainly played Klezmer music.
It consisted of the four New York City born brothers, Max Epstein (October 4, 1912 – March 1 ...
in the 1990s led to the creation of a documentary film directed by Stefan Schwietert called ''A Tickle in the Heart'' (1996).
![Joel Rubin UVA Klezmer 2014 173](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Joel_Rubin_UVA_Klezmer_2014_173.jpg)
His 2001 dissertation at
City University, London
City, University of London, is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, and a member institution of the federal University of London. It was founded in 1894 as the Northampton Institute, and became a university when The City Univ ...
examined the performance style of klezmer clarinetists
Dave Tarras
Dave Tarras (c. 1895 – February 13, 1989) was a Ukrainian-born American klezmer clarinetist and bandleader, a celebrated klezmer musician, instrumental in Klezmer revival.
Biography Early life
Tarras was born David Tarasiuk in Teplyk, Ukrai ...
and
Naftule Brandwein
Naftule Brandwein, or Naftuli Brandwine, ( yi, נפתלי בראַנדװײַן, 1884–1963) was an Austrian-born Jewish American Klezmer musician, clarinetist, bandleader and recording artist active from the 1910s to the 1940s. Along with ...
. His most recent book, ''New York Klezmer in the Early Twentieth Century: The Music of Naftule Brandwein and Dave Tarras'' (U. of Rochester Press, 2020) revisits those two clarinetists.
After finishing his PhD, in 2003 he returned to the United States and worked as an instructor at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
and
Ithaca College
Ithaca College is a private college in Ithaca, New York. It was founded by William Egbert in 1892 as a conservatory of music and is set against the backdrop of the city of Ithaca (which is separate from the town), Cayuga Lake, waterfalls, and go ...
in
Ithaca, New York
Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named a ...
. In 2006 he became an assistant professor at the
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...
where he worked until 2020. At present he is an Adjunct Researcher at the
University of Bern
The University of Bern (german: Universität Bern, french: Université de Berne, la, Universitas Bernensis) is a university in the Switzerland, Swiss capital of Bern and was founded in 1834. It is regulated and financed by the Canton of Bern. It ...
.
He has also published many academic papers, many of which are available on
Academia.edu
Academia.edu is a for-profit open repository of academic articles free to read by visitors. Uploading and downloading is restricted to registered users. Additional features are accessible only as a paid subscription. Since 2016 various social ...
.
In 2021, Rubin deposited his collection of research materials and other documents with the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
American Folklife Center
The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. was created by Congress in 1976 "to preserve and present American Folklife". The center includes the Archive of Folk Culture, established at the library in 1928 as a repos ...
.
Selected publications
* (Jewish Musical Traditions), co-authored with Rita Ottens. , 2001.
*, co-authored with Rita Ottens.
Bärenreiter
Bärenreiter (Bärenreiter-Verlag) is a German classical music publishing house based in Kassel. The firm was founded by Karl Vötterle (1903–1975) in Augsburg in 1923, and moved to Kassel in 1927, where it still has its headquarters; it also ...
and dtv, 1999.
*''Mazltov! Jewish-American Wedding Music for Clarinet''. Schott Musik International, 1998.
*''New York Klezmer in the Early Twentieth Century: The Music of Naftule Brandwein and Dave Tarras''.
University of Rochester Press
Boydell & Brewer is an academic press based in Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, that specializes in publishing historical and critical works. In addition to British and general history, the company publishes three series devoted to studies, edition ...
, 2020.
Selected recordings
*Joel Rubin Klezmer Band. ''Brave Old World'' (1988, Global Village).
*Brave Old World. ''Klezmer Music'' (1991, Flying Fish Records)
*Joel Rubin and Josh Horowitz. ''Bessarabian Symphony: Early Jewish Instrumental Music''(1994, Schott Wergo)
*Joel Rubin with the Epstein Brothers Orchestra. ''Zeydes un Eyniklekh (Grandfathers and Grandsons): American-Jewish Wedding Music from the Repertoire of Dave Tarras'' (1995, Schott Wergo).
*Joel Rubin Jewish Music Ensemble. ''Beregovski’s Khasene (Beregovski’s Wedding): Forgotten Instrumental Treasures from the Ukraine'' (1997, Schott Wergo).
*Joel Rubin Ensemble. ''Midnight Prayer'' (2007, Traditional Crossroads).
*Joel Rubin and Uri Caine. (2011,
Tzadik Records
Tzadik Records is a record label in New York City that specializes in avant-garde and experimental music. The label was established by composer and saxophonist John Zorn in 1995. He is the executive producer of all Tzadik releases. Tzadik is a n ...
)
*Joel Rubin Ensemble featuring Rabbi Eli Silberstein. ''Nign of Reb Mendel: Hasidic Songs in Yiddish'' (2010, Traditional Crossroads).
*
Veretski Pass
Veretskyi Pass or Verecke Pass ( uk, Вере́цький перевал, translit=Veretskyi pereval, more formally: uk, перевал Середньоверецький, translit=pereval Serednoveretskyi, label=none, also known as: uk, В ...
with Joel Rubin. ''Poyln, A Gilgul'' (2015, Golden Horn Records)
*Veretski Pass with Joel Rubin. ''The Magid Chronicles'' (2019, Golden Horn Records), based on the work of
Sofia Magid
Sofia Magid ( ''Sofiya Davidovna Magid-Ékmekchi'', c. 1892-1954) was a Soviet Jewish ethnographer and folklorist whose career lasted from the 1920s to the 1950s. Among the materials she collected were folksongs of Volhynian and Belarusian Jews and ...
Curated or produced albums
*''Shteygers (Ways). New Klezmer Music 1991-1994'', Trikont, 1995.
*''Yikhes (Lineage): Early Klezmer Recordings 1911-1939'' (1996, Trikont)
*''Doyres (Generations): Traditional Klezmer Recordings 1979-1994'' (1995, Trikont).
*''Jüdische Lebenswelten/Patterns of Jewish Life: Highlights from the Concert Serles ”Traditional and Popular Jewish Music” Berlin 1992'', (1993, Schott Wergo).
*The Epstein Brothers Orchestra. ''Kings of Freylekh Land: A Century of Yiddish-American Music'' (1995, Schott Wergo).
*''Hungry Hearts: Classic Yiddish Clarinet Solos of the 1920s'' (1998, Schott Wergo).
*''Oytsres (Treasures): Klezmer Music 1908-1996'' (1999, Schott Wergo).
*''Cantor Isaac Algazi: Sweet Singer of Israel. Ottoman Jewish Music from the Early 20th Century'', Schott Wergo, in cooperation with Prof. Edwin Seroussi and the Renanot Institute for Jewish Music, Schott Wergo, 2002.
*''Di eybike mame (The Eternal Mother): Women in Yiddish Theater and Popular Song 1906-1929'' (2003, Schott Wergo).
*''Shalom Comrade!: Yiddish Music in the Soviet Union 1928-1961'' (2005, Schott Wergo).
*''Aneinu (Answer Us): Hasidic-Orthodox Music from the Festival of the Torah in Jerusalem'' (Moussa Berlin Ensemble) (2008, Schott Wergo).
*''Chekhov’s Band: Eastern European Klezmer Music from the EMI Archives 1908-1913'' (2015, Renair Records).
References
External links
Joel Rubin web siteRubinon
iTunes
iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rubin, Joel
Living people
American clarinetists
Jewish American musicians
Alumni of the University of London
1955 births
State University of New York at Purchase alumni
California Institute of the Arts alumni
University of Virginia faculty
21st-century clarinetists
Musicians from Los Angeles
Klezmer musicians