Klezmer Ensemble
Course Description
Summary
Klezmer is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jewish communities of Central and Eastern Europe. With its breakneck dance tunes, soulful strings, and wailing horns, Klezmer has been an ever-evolving fixture of Jewish cultural life since its beginnings in the sixteenth century, incorporating elements from Ottoman Turkish music, Baroque music, Slavic and German folk dances, and the sounds of Jewish prayer. From exuberant dance music for weddings and other celebrations to ritual melodies and stirring improvisations, Klezmer moves between hard partying, regal, elegant, and raucous. This ensemble will cover a wide repertoire of songs meant for listening or group and solo dancing—the lively freylekh, ecstatickhosidl, sher, bulgar, terkisher, patsh tants, skotshne, hora,and more. We will learn the dances themselves and the significance of gesture, melody, and movement in Jewish expressive culture. Our repertoire will move from the shtetls (Jewish villages) of Eastern Europe to Klezmer's migration and flourishing in the United States, where it encountered big band, salsa, and other pop music styles. We will continue on to the Klezmer renaissance of the 1970s and to its current and thriving experimental period with punk, jazz, and more. The other pillar of our course will be the vocal repertoire—Yiddish folk and Yiddish theatre songs of love, satire, protest, celebration, Holocaust, and liberation, along with other Jewish Eastern European traditions such asniggunim (wordless songs) andzemiros (table songs). We will learn through a combination of learning by ear and with notation.
Learning Outcomes
- • Study key historical, cultural, and musical influences that shaped the development of Klezmer from Eastern Europe to the United States and its contemporary forms.
• Perform a diverse repertoire of Klezmer instrumental and vocal music, including traditional dance forms, Yiddish songs, niggunim, and zemiros, using both ear-based learning and musical notation.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between Klezmer music, Jewish expressive culture, and movement by learning and performing traditional dances and recognizing the significance of gesture, melody, and rhythm.
• Analyze and interpret the ways Klezmer and Yiddish musical traditions have evolved through migration, cultural exchange, and encounters with genres such as jazz, big band, salsa, punk, and other contemporary styles.
• Develop effective ensemble skills by listening actively, responding to fellow musicians, balancing individual parts within the group, and collaborating to create a cohesive, stylistically appropriate ensemble sound.
• Demonstrate professionalism in rehearsal and performance by preparing music independently, arriving ready to contribute, responding constructively to direction and feedback, maintaining focus and flexibility, and supporting the collective goals of the ensemble.
Prerequisites
Students should audition for the instructor with a musical selection that adequately demonstrates their abilities as an instrumentalist or vocalist. Students must be able to learn and retain music comfortably by ear and/or with a notated score. Please email josephalpar@bennington.edu to arrange an audition.
Corequisites
Participation in some Music Workshops on Tuesday evenings at 6:30 PM
Participation in scheduled performances during the term
Cross List
- Ethnomusicology
- Music History