PAST VOCAL WORKSHOPS

2020

Saturday, February 29, 2–4 PM at Simple Studios, New York, NY

what we learned:

Psoy shared his vision of multilingualism and cultural otherness in songs. Those songs that we will learn featured translations, language switching, cultural hybridity, and "foreignness". We focused especially on Yiddish songs, many of which, just as that language itself, are charged with the spirit of cosmopolitanism, internationalism, and universalism.

The songs Psoy taught us reflect the experiences of Jewish people living in different places and times in Eastern Europe, including Ukraine. This workshop worked on the repertoire of Yiddish Glory, which has been nominated for a Grammy and also won The Fiddler On The Roof award from the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russi.

About Psoy Korolenko:

Pavel Lion, a.k.a. Psoy Korolenko, a singer-songwriter, translator, scholar and journalist, has been referred to as a "wandering scholar” and an "avant-bard." His multilingual, one-person cabaret balances various genres and traditions, among which East European, Klezmer and Yiddish music play a significant role.

On stage since 2000, he has released several books of essays, poetry and song lyrics, and more than 20 albums, solo or in collaboration with active Jewish and klezmer musicians (Opa! with Daniel Kahn and Igor Krutogolov; Oy Division with Michael Alpert, Bob Cohen and Jake Shulmann-Ment). Psoy is a member of a committee that organizes the Russian American music festival JetLAG, a guest of many klezmer music festivals, and a former artist in residence at Trinity College (Hartford), University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), and Dickinson College (Carlisle, PA). He has been featured in movies about klezmer music (Soul Exodus, The Wandering Muse), and participates in various international music projects such as Yiddish Glory, Brothers Nazaroff, and Defesa.

THURSDAY, JULY 23, 7:30–9 PM, virtual session

what we learned:

D. Zisl Slepovitch taught us a set of songs that derive from Eastern European Slavic and Jewish traditions. The songs were split into two different groups that showed cultural diffusion in different ways. One group included macaronic or multilingual songs and the other included songs that reflect upon the unusual cultural practices of high contact cultures and how they affect one another.

About Dmitri Zisl Slepovitch:

D. Zisl Slepovitch, a native of Minsk, Belarus, is a musicologist (Ph.D.), klezmer, classical and improvising musician, multi-instrumentalist (woodwinds, keyboards, vocals), conductor, composer, producer, and music and Yiddish educator. He is the founding member of critically acclaimed bands Litvakus and Zisl Slepovitch Trio; a performer, featured artist, music director, composer, arranger, orchestra contractor in many productions of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene; musician-in-residence at Fortunoff Video Archive at Yale University; clarinetist/klezmer soloist and assistant conductor in Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish (off-Broadway), music director in Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish (State Jewish Theatre, Bucharest). Zisl has been a Yiddish language and culture instructor at The New School, educator and artist in residence at BIMA at Brandeis University, and guest artist and lecturer at many US and international universities, cultural organizations and festivals. His theater, film, and TV contributions include consulting and acting in Defiance movie, Eternal Echoes CD (Sony Classical), Rejoice with Itzhak Perlman and Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot (PBS), and a number of original scores. Learn more at zislepovitch.com.

Sunday, November 22, 4-5:30 PM, virtual session

what we learned:

Brian led us in exploring Ukrainian lyrical songs whose plots are so universal that the same songs exist in the British Isles and America. We sang through Ukrainian polyphonic songs and their American and British counterparts, and discussed the far-flung connection between folk traditions.

About brian dolphin:

Brian Dolphin is a Thomas J. Watson Fellow, Fulbright recipient, and doctoral student of Ethnomusicology at the CUNY Graduate Center. He has studied under and performed with master singers from all over Ukraine, including singers of ensembles Drevo, Rozhanytsia, and Ladovytsi. Brian has also done ethnography and performed at various festivals throughout Ukraine. He is a cofounder of Ukrainian Village Voices in New York City, and under his musical direction UVV has performed at Brooklyn Folk Festival, Zlatne Uste Golden Festival, and Saint George Ukrainian Festival.