Field Work In Focus

An Interview Series With Researchers & Archivists

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Isapescu Alexandru

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About the Series

Much of the European klezmer canon was collected and curated in the early twentieth century by Magid, Kiselgof, Beregovski and other members of the Russian Jewish folklore movement, but important field work continued from the 1980s through to the present. Meet some of the musicologists, musicians, folklorists and archivists who are intimately engaged with the deep work of oral transmission in musical  culture. Each thematic series will feature 3-5 individual interview sessions followed by a capstone round table discussion.   

This series is sponsored in part by the Rabbi’s Discretionary Fund at Congregation Albert.

Series 1: Collecting Minority Musics in Central and Eastern Europe

Join Klezmer Institute’s Christina Crowder to meet the people who have conducted some of the most important field work in Jewish music in central and eastern Europe in the late twentieth century. Tune in live to ask your own questions and to participate in an intimate conversation about research with minority populations behind the Iron Curtain that puts a focus on the personal reflections and stories that don’t get included in scientific papers. 

Series I Concluding Roundtable Discussion with Christian Dawid, Speranța Radulescu, Vasile Chiselița, and Walter Zev Feldman, hosted by Christina Crowder.

Sunday, December 20, 12 noon Eastern.

This event is co-produced with Yiddish New York 2020, and is supported in part by the Rabbi’s discretionary fund at Congregation Albert. 

Vasile Chiseliță

Vasile Chiseliță

December 13, 2020, 12 noon (EST)

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Suggested Donation $10.

Short Bio

Vasile Chiseliță is an ethnomusicologist whose work has focused on intercultural relations within traditional music in central, eastern and south-eastern Europe. He is currently affiliated with the Institute of Cultural Heritage at the Moldovan Academy of Sciences, where he coordinates research projects and participated in a UNESCO Intangible World Heritage Project in 2013. Chiseliță conducted his field work in northern Moldova / Bessarabia and northern Bukovina between 1984-2007. He has published several articles examining classification systems for Moldavian folk music and has explored the influence of Jewish culture in the folk music of Bessarabia. His article on tracing the Lemish klezmer family in Iași and Bessarabia fills in important biographical details about an important Philadelphia klezmer family.

Selected Bibliography

“Interferente culturale evreieşti in muzica traditionala de dans din Basarabia şi Bucovina,” (The Influence of Jewish Culture in the Traditional Music of Dance from Bessarbia and Bucovina). Anuarul Institutului de Etnografie şi Folclor “Constantin Brailoiu”. Bucharest: Editura Academiei Romane, tomul 19, (2008): 201-222.

“Probleme de clasificare a muzicii de dans din Bucovina şi Besarabia,” (Problems of Classifying Dance Music from Bucovina and Bessarabia). Arta. Chisinau: Insitutul Studiul Artelor (2005): 68-81.

“Procese modulatorii în muzica tradițională de dans: modul cromatic mixt bicentrat (abordare preliminară)” (Modulatory processes in traditional dance music: bicentric mixed chromatic mode (preliminary approaches)). Lumea Românească: O Viziune Antropologică, Ligia Fulga, editor. (Brasov: Editura Transilvania Expres). 

“Rezonante işene şi basarabene in biografia muzicienilor Lemisch: surse, dileme, controverse,” (Resonance from Iaşi and Bessarabia in the Biography of the Musician Lemisch: Sources, Dilemmas and Controversies). Anuarul Muzeului Literaturii Romane. Iaşi, 5, (2012): 47-64.

Speranța Rădulescu

Speranța Rădulescu

November 22, 2020, 12 noon (EST)

Short Bio

Speranţa Rădulescu is an ethnomusicologist at the Peasant Museum in Bucharest and associate professor at the National University of Music–Bucharest. A specialist on lăutar music, she is author of numerous books and articles and supervises the Ethnophonie series (twenty-five CDs so far) that features traditional musics of Romania. Rădulescu conducted groundbreaking field work with the Roma lăutar musicians of Clejani (known today as the Taraf de Haidouks), and worked with folclorist and violinist Constantin Lupu to produce and album of Jewish music from the Botoșani region titled “Festive Musics of the Jews of Botoșani.” 

Selected Bibliography

“Fidders’ Contracts and Payements” în EEME, vol. 3, 1996.

Manele in Romania: Cultural Expression and Social Meaning in Balkan Popular Music, (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). (with Margaret Beissinger and Anca Giurchescu)

“O minoritate într-un context plurietnic: evreii din ținutul Botoșani și muzica lor de petrecere” (în colaborare cu Florin Iordan) în Muzica, nr. 3, 2010

Taraful și acompaniamentul armonic în muzica de joc, Colecția Națională de Folclor, București, Editura Muzicală, 1984, 724 p.

Taifasuri despre muzica țigănească / Chats about Gypsy Music, (București, Editura Paideia, 2004).

“The Peasant Brass Band in Romania” în EEME, vol. 6, 1999.

Christian Dawid

Christian Dawid

November 8, 2020, 12 noon (EST)

Reserve a spot in the Zoom Room at Brown Paper TicketsOr copy this link:

https://christiandawid.brownpapertickets.com

Suggested Donation $10.
Photo: Avia Moore, 2010.

 

Short Bio
Christian Dawid is an internationally renowned clarinetist in world music and beyond. Drawing from a multitude of influences including classical, jazz and ethnic music, he is known for his work in Yiddish and other East-European styles. Since 2005, Dawid has worked with the Ukrainian brass band Konsonans Retro founded by the Baranovsky brothers of Kodyma, Ukraine. Together with their in-laws and other members, the band plays a unique family repertoire from Podolia. Dawid met the group in Vienna in 2005; he now produces the band and has, through regular research trips to Western Ukraine, become an unofficial family member of the Baranovsky clan. Dawid initiated an international project to document and record the work of Bessarabian-born singer and composer Arkady Gender (*1921). His new arrangements of Arkady’s original songs are featured on an album recorded in Vienna and released in 2012.
Selected Bibliography / Discography
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