Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Jewish music, including klezmer and other traditions.
Music
The Latest
-
The Schmooze Monday Music: Down Home Brooklyn
Photo courtesy of Andy Statman The version of “The Lord Will Provide” on “Old Brooklyn,” Andy Statman’s virtuosic two-CD excursion through all manners of American and Jewish music, struck me as unusual, and not just because the voice and clarinet duet is spine-tinglingly powerful. It’s more because the 18th-century hymn, written by James Newton —…
-
The Schmooze Monday Music: Moshe Hecht’s Spiritual Pop
The song titles tell you a lot about this album: “Master Of The World”; “The Soul”; “Father in Heaven.” Even Moshe Hecht’s last name suggests Orthodoxy. But the sounds of his first album, “Heart Is Alive,” are surprisingly diverse. While the lyrics of Hecht’s compositions come from a devout mindset, the sonic colors are those…
-
The Schmooze Band From the North Country
Crossposted from Haaretz The Louisa band is still not so well known in Tel Aviv, but in the north of the country the rock band that Idan Talmud and Itay Sacharof formed has drawn a devoted audience for more than a year, despite their cautious abstention from too much publicity and exaggerated digital hype on…
-
The Schmooze Composer Brings Jazz Age to Washington Ballet
Elizabeth Gaither and Jared Nelson in ‘The Great Gatsby.’ Photo by Steve Vaccariello. F. Scott Fitzgerald — who dubbed the 1920s “the Jazz Age” — would surely approve. This week, jazz clarinetist and composer Billy Novick and his band, the Blue Syncopators, will play Novick’s score for The Washington Ballet’s production of “The Great Gatsby”…
-
The Schmooze Preserving Indie Moments
Crossposted from Haaretz At the site of the festival there were billboards proclaiming “Indiemoment,” urging the thousands present to photograph what they were doing and what was going on around them at the same exact, predetermined times: 3:53 a.m. and 3:53 p.m. After the In-D-Negev Festival 2011 last week, the photos were sent to a…
-
The Schmooze Monday Music: Sounds of the Fathers
At first, I didn’t know how to listen to “The Pirkei Avot Project, Vol. 1.” Taking eight short excerpts from Pirkei Avot, a compendium of rabbinical aphorisms, jazz guitarist Amanda Monaco creates a wise and playful interpretation of some serious material. She uses popular passages, such as Hillel’s saying, “If I am not for me,…
-
The Schmooze Auschwitz Opera in London
Crossposted from Haaretz The hall of the London Coliseum theater in the West End was packed. A few minutes before the English National Opera was due to begin its evening performance, a varied audience had taken its seats in the elegant hall. In addition to the smartly dressed opera buffs were quite a number of…
-
Music Singing Across Israel for Women’s Dignity
Good news — Israeli women are fighting back against those who would hide and silence them. Recent developments for women in Israel have been worrisome and depressing, as readers of this blog are well aware. There has been increasing gender separation on buses and on public streets, harassment of young Beit Shemesh girls whose only…
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Why saying ‘L’shana Tova’ on Rosh Hashanah may not be the correct phrase
- 2
Fast Forward Was the viral Ta-Nehisi Coates interview a hit piece or fair play? A journalism ethics expert weighs in.
- 3
Culture How my odious cousin Roy Cohn was responsible for creating Donald Trump — and me
- 4
Opinion This is the most disorienting Rosh Hashanah in memory
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture How the closing of a website for Yom Kippur confessions explains the modern internet
-
Fast Forward Brown University rejects pro-Palestinian protesters’ demand to divest from Israel
-
Fast Forward As Netanyahu pushes US to join fight against Iran, Biden tells Jewish leaders US ‘fully’ backs Israel’s right to defend itself
-
Fast Forward German town’s memorial stones for Nazi victims are stolen on Oct. 7 anniversary
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism