Bringing Jewish music to the concert hall

On March 10, the ARC Ensemble of Canada’s Royal Conservatory will play at Wigmore Hall in London. The program includes rare works by Weinberg, Laks, Mendelssohn, and Ben Haim. For more information, visit the concert page.

The brilliant composer-pianist Marc-André Hamelin, the star of PMH’s Spring 2012 concert, is this week’s “Artist of the Week” on BBC Radio 3. The broadcasts on Monday include his performances of Alkan and Brahms. You can keep up with the radio’s daily schedule here. On the same page, there is a player at the top right where you can listen live.

On March 5, Zalmen Mlotek, the Artistic Director of The National Yiddish Theatre-Folksbiene, will perform at George Washington University in Washington, DC:

Zalmen Mlotek takes us on a journey from the origins of Yiddish theater in the wine cellars of Rumania to contemporary film music. Along the way you’ll hear operetta arias, humorous vaudeville ballads, backstage renditions of Fiddler on the Roof, klezmer music, a Yiddish-English version of Gilbert and Sullivan and more. As Mlotek seamlessly transforms Yiddish melodies into popular jazz numbers, prepare to learn new and amazing things about the songs you know and love.

With special guest artist Cantor Arianne Brown from Congregation Adas Israel.

Click here for more information from the DC Jewish Community Center.

MusicWeb International’s Göran Forsling recently reviewed Di Sheyne Milnerin, the reworking of Schubert’s cycle of unrequited love, performed by Mark Glanville and Alexander Knapp of A Yiddish Winterreise:

[T]he music, though completely new to me, conveys the feelings just as graphically as Schubert’s does…. This is a fascinating issue and I urge readers to give it a try. It is music off the beaten track, but that’s where one often makes the real discoveries.

Read the rest of the review here.
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David Lehman, author of A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, American Songs,  compiles the top 10 Christmas songs written by Jews: From “Winter Wonderland” to “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” “Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow,” and the best-selling single ever, “White Christmas”:
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