What a great opportunity we have!
One of the greatest musical events in the history of American Jewish community
is about to occur very shortly. The Jewish Theological Seminary of America in cooperation with
the Milken Archive of American Jewish
Music has scheduled a five-day international conference and festival on
music of the American Jewish experience from November 7-11, 2003, at the
Seminary in New York City. The five day
conference is entitled, "Only
in America: Jewish Music in a Land of Freedom.” The conference
is expected to draw participants from around the world. It will feature
workshops, symposia, lectures, scholarly papers, and panel discussions.
Supplementing the conference will be numerous performances
of American Jewish music. The performances will include compositions by
legendary composers such as: Leonard Bernstein, Ernest Bloch and Kurt Weill.
These performances will be given at prestigious New York venues such as Lincoln
Center's Alice Tully Hall and Avery Fisher Hall. It is the performance part of
this conference that will be my favorite.
Dr. Neil Levin, who is the artistic director of the Milken
Archive of American Jewish Music and a professor of Jewish music at the Jewish
Theological Seminary is leading the conference. "Over a period of five
days," said Dr. Levin, "leading historians, musicologists and
composers will explore the rich diversity of both sacred and secular Jewish
musical expression in the United States—from the modest beginnings of the
earliest Jewish settlers in the Colonial Era to the vibrant creativity
throughout the 20th century and into the 21st."
The conference will also introduce the Milken Archive, a
groundbreaking recording project dedicated to discovering and preserving the
rich body of sacred and secular American Jewish music since Colonial times. Its
more than 70 hours of recordings will comprise the largest collection of
American Jewish music ever assembled and will be complemented by oral
histories, a comprehensive history of American Jewish music, and an extensive
collection of memorabilia.
From its New York setting, the conference will coincide with a concert season celebrating the 350th anniversary of American Jewry. In 1654, 23 Jews landed in what was then a Dutch colony called New Amsterdam, now New York City. The first group of twenty-three Jews who arrived in New Amsterdam in 1654 could hardly have predicted the vibrancy and cultural strength of the 21st-century American Jewish community; nor could those first immigrants have imagined its musical breadth. The eve of the 350th anniversary of the birth of American Jewry provides an ideal occasion for us to explore and celebrate our expanding musical/cultural legacy; and it offers an opportunity to examine and experience one major chapter of the wider story of American music.
For five days, through symposia, scholarly papers, discussions, participatory choral and instrumental workshops and sing-ins, film presentations, individual recitals, and major concerts renowned American and international scholars and artists will examine a wide panorama of topics. These range from traditional classical cantorial recitatives to contemporary liturgical music; from popular Yiddish theater and vaudeville to classic Yiddish art music and folk traditions; from classical oriented Jewish expression in symphonies, operas, and chamber music to the American guise of the "klezmer" phenomenon; and from Hassidic song to contemporary choral art. The music will be presented in professional concert performances in major New York venues and in unusual and historic synagogue services. All registrants will have the opportunity to sing in a thousand-voice chorus at the opening Sabbath eve service sing-in of Jewish worship.
Of special interest is an attempt to replicate an American Colonial-era Sabbath morning service, where all the music and the Biblical chanting will have been reconstructed according to the American synagogue services of the 18th century and up through the Revolutionary War. Cameo concerts will feature individual works, some introduced and explained by their composers. Evening concerts will include the American premiere of highlights from the newly reconstructed original version of Kurt Weill's monumental The Eternal Road, not heard in its original form since 1937; two world premieres by American composers Samuel Adler and Ofer Ben-Amotz, specially commissioned for this event; a gala cantorial and Yiddish program of beloved classics with a chorus of more than one hundred voices; two of the most beloved works by Leonard Bernstein and Ernest Bloch; and a reconstruction performance of the first Yiddish operetta to be produced in America, more than 125 years ago.
Only in America also celebrates the public launching of the much-anticipated release by the Milken Archihive of American Jewish Music its initial set of more than fifty CDs of sacred and secular music of the American Jewish experience, never previously recorded-the culmination of a thirteen-year phase of this project. A significant cross-section of this music will be discussed, examined, and heard during the conference and festival.
American music is a multilayered saga of individual expressive and cultural, creative contributions. Only in America provides a once in life-time opportunity in which all Americans, Jews and non-Jews alike, can take pride. The Jewish Theological Seminary and the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music, together with cooperating partners: The Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, the Zamir Choral Foundation, and the National Foundation for Jewish Culture are providing for all of us an opportunity to join in celebrating this historic occasion and expand our collective musical awareness. The programs are open to all. However, there are registration fees. Attend any one of the gala events and add your voice to this great Jewish American Sing – In.
Sincerely,
Cantor
Elihu Feldman