Department of Music

Music excerpts:

• Brave Old World, Doina Extravaganza
• Rubin & Bern, Galitsyaner
• The Other Europeans, Hangul de la Edinets

The University of Virginia McIntire Department of Music presents the Spring 2014 performance by the University of Virginia Klezmer Ensemble under the direction of Director of Performance, clarinetist and ethnomusicologist Joel Rubin, on Thursday, March 27th, 2014 at 8pm in Old Cabell Hall. The Klezmer Ensemble is pleased to welcome special guest accordionist, pianist and composer, Alan Bern from Berlin, Germany. Bern is the founding director of Yiddish Summer Weimar and the non-profit, other music e.V. He is the leader of The Other Europeans, a musical collaboration between renowned klezmer and Romani musicians, and musical director of Brave Old World, the pioneering klezmer revival group he and Rubin started in 1989. Bern has been an important figure in the klezmer revival and improvised music since the 1980s, collaborating with numerous artists including Itzhak Perlman, Guy Klucevsek, The Klezmatics, and Andy Statman.  As an educator, he has taught at Klezkanada, Klezfest London, YiddishFest Moscow and elsewhere. Bern earned a DMA in Music Composition at the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati (2006). His compositions have received awards in the USA, Europe and Israel, and he also writes and directs music for theater and modern dance productions. He received a Ruth Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in world music from the Dance and Folk Festival Rudolstadt in 2009. (http://www.alanbern.net). Bern will be in residency at UVA during the week leading up to the concert. The residency has been co-sponsored by the Jewish Studies program, the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, and the Dunton Gift (UVA jazz program)

The UVA Klezmer Ensemble focuses on the music of the klezmorim, originally the Jewish professional instrumentalists of eastern Europe. Klezmer was brought to North America by immigrants around the turn of the last century. Since the 1970s, a dynamic revival of this tradition has been taking place in America and beyond. Klezmer’s recent popularity has brought it far from its roots in medieval minstrelsy and Jewish ritual and into the sphere of mainstream culture.

Now in its eighth year, the UVA Klezmer Ensemble has become a vital part of the musical community of Central and Northern Virginia. Performing in Old Cabell Hall as well as at conferences and festivals in Central and Northern Virginia. The ensemble is made up of both undergraduate and graduate students from across grounds, faculty, alumni and other members of the greater Central Virginia community, and is dedicated to exploring klezmer and other Jewish and eastern European musical traditions from the 18th to the 21st century. The group is committed to ethnic, racial, cultural and religious diversity. Current and recent members have backgrounds from the US, Russia, Israel, Lebanon, Armenia, Iran, and India, with religious backgrounds ranging from Jewish to Christian, Hindu and Muslim.

Joel Rubin is a 2013-14 recipient of the Mead Endowment, a program whose mission is to promote the University’s unique tradition of faculty involvement with students by identifying outstanding teachers and encouraging them to take part in that tradition. The Mead funding will enable the UVA Klezmer Ensemble to record a CD documenting its work at culmination of the fall semester. Rubin’s recent activities include a CD with jazz pianist and composer Uri Caine (“Azoy Tsu Tsveyt,” Tzadik Records), teaching at the International Master Classes of the World Klezmer Center in Safed, Israel and at KlezKamp in New York, and performances at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater (Symphony Space) in New York, the Music Gallery in Toronto with Uri Caine. In 2014 he will be a featured performer at the International Festival of Sacred Music in Fribourg, Switzerland, and at the KlezCalifornia festival.

Tickets for the Klezmer Ensemble performance are $10 for adults and $5 for students. Tickets for University of Virginia students are free if reserved in advance at the Arts Box Office www.artsboxoffice.virginia.edu. Tickets are available in advance or at the door.

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.

For more information please call the McIntire Department of Music at 434.924.3052.

Full Residency details: http://bit.ly/Bern-Residency

Sponsored by:

UVa McIntire Dept. of Music
James Dunton Gift (Jazz Program)
UVa Jewish Studies Program
UVa Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies
UVa Office of the Provost  and the Vice Provost for the Arts