Sasha Lurje, Ilya Shneyveys and Joel Rubin with the UVA Klezmer Ensemble
The UVA Klezmer Ensemble under the direction of Joel Rubin celebrates its 10th anniversary with a free concert full of cutting-edge reinterpretations of traditional Jewish music on Thursday, April 14, at 8pm in UVA's Old Cabell Hall.
Ethnomusicologist, Associate Professor of Music and Director of Music Performance at UVA, Joel Rubin, has directed the Klezmer Ensemble for 10 years at the University of Virginia. The Klezmer Ensemble explores Jewish and other eastern European musical traditions. Throughout this decade, they have performed works from the 18th to the 21st century, becoming a vital part of the musical community of Virginia. This music was passed on orally for generations and can only be approximated by Western notation, so the musicians do most of their work by ear, often improvising over basic melodies and harmonies. Musicians in the UVA Klezmer Ensemble are a diverse set of performers. In the past decade their participants cultural backgrounds have ranged from all over the globe: the US, China, Israel, Lebanon, Armenia, Iran and India, and diverse religious backgrounds from Jewish to Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim.
This year's guest artists are Latvian fusion artists, singer Sasha Lurje and keyboardist-arranger Ilya Shneyveys, along with trumpeter and composer John D'earth. Based in Berlin, Lurje and Shneyveys are at the forefront of the young generation of klezmer and Yiddish revivalists, performing all over the world with their psychedelic rock band Forshpil.
In their own words, "this is what it would have sounded like if Pink Floyd and The Doors had ever jammed together at a Jewish wedding," so don't miss this unique collaboration!
“Creates a uniquely evocative world ... how many times will you hold your breath listening to this...?”
(Alan Bern, Other Music Academy, Yiddish Summer Weimar).
Based in Berlin, Germany, Sasha Lurje and Ilya Shneyveys hail from Riga, Latvia. Sasha Lurje has been researching and performing traditional Yiddish singing style and repertoire, investigating both secular and religious vocal materials. With her Yiddish psychedelic rock band Forshpil (Riga-St. Petersburg-Berlin), she is developing a new style of Yiddish music by integrating the traditional sound into a modern context. Recently Sasha has collaborated with Daniel Kahn (Painted Bird), who was in residency at UVA in spring 2015, in developing an “interlingual” love song duo program, “STRANGELOVESONGS” for the pioneering Maxim Gorki Theater Studio in Berlin. She is involved in a number of international projects of varying repertoire and styles, including Alan Bern’s (UVA residency spring 2014) Semer Label Reloaded project, which recorded a live album at the Gorki Theater in November 2015 for Piranha Records. Sasha has performed and taught Yiddish singing in Russia, Europe and Canada and has been a long-standing artist and faculty member at Yiddish Summer Weimar. She has been singing since she was three years old and gained experience with many groups and in various styles including classical and folk singing, jazz, rock, and pop. Parallel to her singing career she has also been involved in several theater groups where she focused on musical and improvised theater.
Ilya Shneyveys is a multi-instrumentalist (accordion, keyboards, guitar, flute, percussion), arranger, composer and educator specializing in Jewish music, from klezmer and Yiddish folk song to fusion and experimental projects. Ilya is the artistic director and a founding member of Forshpil and a founding member of the Yiddish-Bavarian fusion project Alpen Klezmer (Germany), winner of 2014 RUTH World music award at TFF Rudolstadt. He frequently performs with Dobranotch (Russia) and collaborates with artists such as Alan Bern, the Klezmatics, and Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird. Over the years Ilya has performed and taught at major Jewish festivals around the world, including Yiddish Summer Weimar, Yiddish Fest Moscow, Klezfest St.Petersburg, Klezfest London, KlezKanada, the Montreal Jewish Festival, the Ashkenaz Festival (Toronto), and the Cracow Jewish Culture Festival. Ilya composes klezmer pieces in both traditional and experimental styles and creates original arrangements of traditional Jewish music. He is renowned for his improvising, accompanying and band leading.
The concert will intersperse solo, duo and trio performances by Lurje, Shneyveys and Rubin with joint performances with the UVA Klezmer Ensemble in a performance of Forshpil and other klezmer and Yiddish repertoire. The band will be joined by members of the UVA Jazz Ensemble under the direction of John D’earth in a unique collaboration for parts of the program.
Joel Rubin has recorded numerous CDs under his own name. His most recent CD, Poyln: A Gilgul (2015) is a collaboration with the acclaimed trio Veretski Pass. Recent performances have included at the International Festival of Sacred Music in Fribourg, Switzerland, at Miller’s Studio in Zurich, as well as at the festivals Yiddish Summer Weimar, KlezFest London, and KlezCalifornia.
Old Cabell Hall is located on the south end of UVA’s historic Lawn, directly opposite the Rotunda. Parking is available in at the Central Grounds Parking Garage, or in the lots off University Avenue at the University Corner. Handicapped parking is available in the C1 parking lot or in designated spaces on McCormick Avenue.
This performance is made possible with support from the UVA Jewish Studies Program, the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, the Center for German Studies, the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, and the Office of the Provost and the Vice Provost for the Arts.
For more information please call the McIntire Department of Music at 434.924.3052.
This concert is feature on http://www.news.virginia.edu/content/uvas-klezmer-ensemble-pairs-modern-....
For more information on the complete residency, see: