Jewish Music Links
"Where can I buy Jewish music recordings?"
Your local HMV, Tower, Virgin or whatever CD mega store is extremely unlikely to carry much in the way of or even any sort of Jewish music recordings. Amazon and Barnes & Noble and other online sources have the odd few releases in their catalogues, but you'll be very lucky to find what you're looking for.
However, there are very much better sources from which to obtain CDs (and/or audio cassettes etc.) of all manner of Jewish music. These are specialist Judaica outlets. For a start, there are two wonderful such outlets, one in the USA and the other in the UK, in the form of Hatikvah Music and Jewish Music Distribution UK. You can find more information on these two here. If it's out there and at all obtainable, these dedicated people are your best hope of getting it!
Specialist outlets like this are always at best marginal and often struggling to survive, while providing an invaluable service, so if you love Jewish music and are looking to buy, may I urge you to please take your custom to :
HATIKVAH Music International
is based at: 436 N. Fairfax, L.A., Ca. (USA)
(+1) (323) 655 7083Simon, Hatikvah's friendly helpful owner, carries every imaginable kind of Jewish music and then some. You can also contact Simon by email with any specific queries you might have, for example concerning a recording you're looking for that isn't listed on his web site.
Hatikvah Music also take particular pride in offering the largest selection of Sephardic music in the world, seperated into "Ladino" (Judeo-Spanish) and (non-Spanish) Sephardic categories, and here are the two direct links to the start of those respective pages:
Sephardic and Ladino recordings tend to be especially hard to find generally, so the above should provide a convenient shortcut.
Jewish Music Distribution UK
is based at: PO Box 67, Hailsham, BN27 4UW (UK)
Tel/Fax: (+44) (0)1323 832863JMD UK is run by the friendly helpful Noa and also carries an incredible range of all kinds of Jewish music. For any specific queries concerning e.g. recordings that you are looking for (chances are, Noa's got it!), you can also contact Noa by email. Previously hosted by the Jewish Music Institute (SOAS), London, Noa's own brand new web site is now online and also offers secure online ordering.
Ari Davidow's Klezmer Shack is one of the most useful and interesting Jewish music web sites around. Its "Klezmer Shack" title is perhaps a little misleading, as it covers far more than just klezmer music and related forms of Yiddish music/song - in fact, every form of Jewish music is catered for here. There are a variety of articles on many general as well as specialist aspects of and topics concerning various forms of Jewish music and all manner of things related. Reviews, news, detailed listings of klezmer and other Jewish music bands and artists around the world, concert dates, listings of all manner of Jewish music resources - in short, Klezmer Shack is a veritable treasure trove for any Jewish music enthusiast. And Ari Davidow is a true treasure for making it all accessible for everybody, and in addition running yet another treasure trove for anybody involved in Jewish music, the Jewish Music Mailing List. I think a big "thank you" to Ari is in order here.
The Jewish Music Institute, SOAS, University of London, UK, maintains an excellent web site that is another valuable resource for Jewish music enthusiasts. In particular, it also provides a focus on Jewish music related events in the UK, including the annual "KlezFest".
The Klezmer in the UK pages of the JMI provide a focal point specifically for klezmer music in the UK.
Joshua Horowitz provides another valuable resource for the Jewish music world on the fascinating web site of his ensemble, Budowitz. Among many other interesting pages, you can find an introduction to the history of klezmer music.
Joshua Horowitz is also an outstanding ethnomusicologist, and his article (extracted from an unpublished paper by Horowitz) on The Main Klezmer Modes is both fascinating and practically required reading for anybody with an interest in the theory of Jewish music.
Tsimbls and Their Kin is another riveting article by Joshua Horowitz, who of course is one of the most outstanding contemporary performers on this wonderful instrument (as well as the 19th c. button accordion, of course). (The tsimbl, of course, is the Eastern European Jewish hammered dulcimer or cimbalom.)
Helen Winkler maintains a fascinating web site devoted to Yiddish dance, Helen's Yiddish Dance Page. A brief intro:
Helen Winkler was born in Montreal and grew up in Toronto. She has been involved with recreational, international, folk dance for 25 years and has taught international folk dancing in Calgary for the past 21 years. Helen has a strong interest in the dances of Jews of Eastern Europe and maintains a web site dedicated to the revitalization of these dances. She has attended workshops in Yiddish dance with Steve Weintraub and Zev Feldman. Helen is an associate member of the Canadian Dance Teachers Association, International Folk Dance division, President of Calgary Folkdance Fridays and coordinator of the Israeli dance program at the Calgary Jewish Center.
Irwin Oppenheim runs the fabulous Chazzanut Online web site, "A comprehensive site on Jewish Liturgical Music (chazzanut), with a large collection of cantorial music scores, midi sound, annotated links and background information." For everything concerning Jewish liturgical music, this is the place to go!
YaD Arts, in their own words, "is radical diaspora culture in the present tense: live music, dance, visual and performance art, film production and educational programmes representing the best artists from across ethnic Britain." Their web site can be found here. YaD Arts are a non-profit organisation.
Maria del Mar manages the YaD Agency, part of YaD Arts. The agency pages are just having the finishing touches applied to them (as at beginning of September 2003) and should be finished shortly. The agency at present represents more than 50 artists and DJs in a variety of styles, from world music to global electronica and ethno-jazz to classical. Their roster includes such well known artists and bands as Daphna Sadeh, Oi Va Voi, Hip-Hop Khasene, Burning Bush, Klezmania, and Tangele, among others. So if you're organising any kind of event in the UK or maybe are looking for music for your party, a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, wedding or other occasion, why not contact YaD and get them to send you their excellent sampler to help you choose - they have music for any occasion and all ages as well as for most musical preferences!
Adrianne Greenbaum, stellar classical and klezmer flautist, has a new website that includes a fabulous Klezmer Flute Facts page, an ongoing feature on all aspects of the flute in klezmer music, with fascinating and authoritative facts and opinions that will surely become "required reading" for any klezmer flautist, or flutist if you're on that side of the pond. It's also most informative and interesting even if you're not, for both other musicians and those who just love flute and flute music or klezmer music.
Jewish Renaissance is a quarterly UK magazine that started publication in 2002 and is devoted to all aspects of Jewish culture, including of course Jewish music. A real delight, Jewish Renaissance is extremey well written and presented, beautifully produced and printed, on excellent quality paper, and its coverage of Jewish culture is very comprehensive indeed and simply wonderful. Informative, stimulating, and often thought-provoking, Jewish Renaissance is something that ought to have been around in the UK for much, much longer. Its mission statement is a fine and noble one:
To encourage and intensify the current renaissance in Jewish culture
To transmit the dynamism evident in so many events to the whole community
To raise the profile and esteem of Jewish culture
To show the variety and relevance of Jewish culture to multicultural lifeSums it up very nicely, too. Published by a non-profit organisation, Jewish Renaissance is also very competitively priced and currently available by subscription only, at a mere £18.00 for 4 issues in the UK (at time of writing/autumn 2003) (now that really isn't bad at all for such a quality publication, compared to general price levels of magazines these days). You can subscribe online via their web site, or by calling (within the UK) 020 8876 1891, and they can also be contacted by email. Overseas subscriptions are also extremely reasonable. Advertising is minimal (and unobtrusive and contextual), and Jewish Renaissance deserves support and really should not be allowed to fail.
David Conway maintains a most interesting site based on his post-grad researches into Jewish musicians at University College London. The many fascinating articles include:
Meyerbeer the Jew
Mendelssohn the Christian
The Family Halévy
Unriddling Alkan
and many more. Also included is an archive of (out-of-copyright) musical material, and a comprehensive bibliography. Not to be missed!
KLEZCALIFORNIA is an annual five day celebration of Klezmer Music, Yiddish Language, Literature, Dance and Folk Arts, with evening events and a full children's program, held every summer in San Francisco, California. Course offerings, teachers, registration instructions and other details are available from the KlezCaliforniaweb site as well as by email or phone on (+1) 415-789-7679.
KlezFest is the UK's annual five day celebration of Yiddish and klezmer music and culture with a full programme of courses, workshops, concerts and more. Held in London based at the Jewish Music Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of the University of London every summer, KlezFest is usually preceded by a week long Yiddish language and culture course. Full details and online registration forms are usually available in the early part of each year at the JMI website.
KlezKamp is the grandaddy of all klezmer and Yiddish culture fests. The brainchild of Henry Sapoznik of Kapelye and The Jewish Radio Project fame, and acclaimed author of one of the modern standard texts on klezmer and the klezmer renaissance of the late 20th century, Klezmer! Jewish Music from Old World to Our World, KlezKamp was first held in 1984 and takes place annually in December in the Catskills of New York State. Now also known as the Yiddish Folk Arts Festival, KlezKamp features "innovative classes, great teachers and the finest schedule of Yiddish culture programs in the world", to quote the official blurb. Full details of each year's event and online registration are usually available on the official KlezKamp web site in the autumn, or you can email for a printed brochure.
General Interest Links
If you're a parent with a child or children in the 5- 7 age group that you feel may have difficulties with reading, writing, and spelling, or may be suffering from dyslexia, the SOUNDWORKS web site will be of considerable interest to you. It offers a complete learning package specially designed for parents who wish to help their children at home, designed by well-known authority in this area, Dr. Mary Kibel.
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