Klezmer

Leading musicologist Walter Zev Feldman (New York) presents the first comprehensive study of klezmer music and its social history written in any language (Oxford, 2016).

Emerging in 16th century Prague, then Krakow and Lvov, the klezmer profession became a central cultural feature of the Ashkenazim of Eastern Europe. The term klezmer was used for four hundred years in every region of Eastern Europe for a member of the Jewish musicians’ guild. Much of the musical and choreographic history of the Ashkenazim is embedded in the klezmer repertoire, which functioned as a kind of non-verbal communal memory.

Entrance free of charge, please register online.

Walter Zev Feldman is Visiting Professor of Music at New York University Abu Dhabi, Director of the An-sky Institute for Traditional Jewish Expressive Culture at the Center for Traditional Music and Dance (NYC), and Board Member of Corpus Musicae Ottomanicae (University of Münster). Author of Music of the Ottoman Court (Berlin, 1996) and Klezmer: Music, History, Memory (Oxford, 2016).