Music and Dance at Nahalat Shalom

Congregation Nahalat Shalom

Archives:

Klezmerquerque 2006

Klezmerquerque 2003

Link to list of upcoming performances and live music and dance events

The Bands of Nahalat Shalom

Jewish music and dance at Nahalat Shalom

Members of Nahalat Shalom are fortunate that they can enjoy live Jewish music at many functions and services performed by these three bands: The Nahalat Shalom Community Klezmer Band; Alavados, Nahalat Shalom’s Holy Days Band; and The Rebbe’s Orkestra, a Klezmer and Judaic ensemble. Our congregation’s Yiddish dance troupe “Rikud” also leads traditional Jewish dances to the music of these great bands.

The Rebbe’s Orkestra (http://arnoproductionsnm.com/index.htm), a popular professional concert and simcha band that performs throughout the southwest, includes Nahalat Shalom’s cantorial soloist and music director Beth Cohen (violin, mandolin and vocals), Barbara Friedman (electric bass), Randy Edmunds (guitar) and Debo Orlofsky (accordion). Beth, Barbara, and Randy have also performed Balkan folk music extensively for over 20 years, and find the musical and community connections resonate in klezmer music. Barbara Friedman says, “I love these people and playing with them. I love the melodies and the different scales. . .and this music is connected to Middle Eastern and Balkan music. It feels like Jewish soul music. The most fun is playing for people to dance.” Randy notes, “I think playing music brings people together as a community—this is something we have lost as a society. It gives people a chance to dance and be together in a way we don’t get to much any more.”

Our beloved and departed Sephardic cantorial soloist, Lorenzo Dominguez, who played guitar and sang with The Rebbe’s Orkestra and also performed with and named Nahalat Shalom’s holy days band “Alavados” (“supplications”), said that the music connected him with the spiritual dimension: “The music enhances everything for me spiritually, makes the circle more complete. The Ladino (Sephardic) music is something I’ve been listening to for a long time, but now, learning the Klezmer music is deepening and completing my experience.”

Alavados Holy Days band is currently comprised of cantorial soloist Beth Cohen (guitar, violin and vocals) and congregation members Barbara Friedman (electric bass), Jake Zengerle (percussion), with violinists Jeff Brody and Gabrielle Rosen. Since 1999, Alavados has provided beautiful accompaniment for our congregational prayers, songs and dances during Rosh Hashanah, Kol Nidre, Yom Kippur, Shabbat Shuvah, Freylekhe Shabbes, Channukah Shabbat, and Tu B’Shevat services. All of the musicians in Alavados are also members of Nahalat Shalom’s 20 piece intergenerational Community Klezmer band.

The Nahalat Shalom Community Klezmer Band first began in 1995 as accompaniment to a Hanukkah service. We can all delight in the fact that the Community Klezmer Band is not only multi-generational but often has several family groups playing together in it. Under Nahalat Shalom’s cantorial soloist Beth Cohen’s direction, this band has developed a repertoire of music to play for dancing at monthly Freylekhe Shabbes services and at other holiday freylekhes during Chanukah, Purim, and Passover. Leading the traditional Yiddish and Jewish dances to the band’s music is our own Rikud Yiddish dance troupe, which began in 2001 under the co-direction of Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb and her dancing-master friend Erik Bendix. Band and dancers rehearse together on Sundays from 2-4pm and it’s open for the public to join. Click here for the schedule and details. The band and dancers also host, perform and study at the annual world-renown Klezmer music and dance weekend “Klezmerquerque”, which features performances, workshops and presentations with world class Klezmer musicians and dancers. Past “Klezmerquerque” guest artists include Joshua Horowitz, Stuart Brotman and Cookie Segelstein (of “Budowitz”, “Brave Old World” and “Veretski Pass”), klezmer clarinet virtuoso Margot Leverett (founder of “The Klezmatics”), klezmer flute expert and band teacher Adrianne Greenbaum and klezmer dance masters Erik Bendix, Shulim Zaltman (from Moldovia) and Steve Weintraub. Get ready for the next “Klezmerquerque” traditionally held in February over President’s Day weekend and look for The Community Klezmer band and Rikud at upcoming Nahalat Shalom and community events!

Klezmer Music: A Short History
by Janice Hart and Judy Brown

Neither the Holocaust nor the migration out of Eastern Europe nor assimilation could stop it. Klezmer music has undergone an enormous revival, which is also happily serving to help keep the Yiddish language alive. The revival has its origin in part in a renewed pride in their ethnicity that Jews began finding in the 70’s, as a new generation of Jewish musicians forged connections across space and time with the musicians of 19th century Eastern Europe.

The term klezmer comes from the Hebrew words “kley zemer”, referring to the musical instruments themselves; gradually, the identities of the musician and his instrument merged to be covered by the one term. References to klezmer bands are found in surviving town records, memoirs, and historical accounts as early as the 15th century. Paintings and woodcuts from those times show Jewish musicians playing instruments similar to those of their non-Jewish neighbors.

The connections between secular and liturgical Jewish music are evident in klezmer scales and ornamentation, which derive from prayer modes and vocal styles used in cantorial music. This sets Jewish music apart, but there was also much cross-fertilization with non-Jewish music of the regions. Jews and non-Jews , especially Gypsies, often played together. Jewish musicians, preferred for their wide traveling, broad repertoire, modesty, and sobriety, were often hired to play at non-Jewish weddings.
The wedding was the best-known milieu for the klezmer. In addition to local peasant dance tunes, the klezmer played a repertoire that reflected traditional Jewish wedding rituals, providing processionals to accompany the community to the shul, as well as music for veiling the bride before the ceremony, seating her after, for paying respect to the in-laws, and for escorting older family members home after the wedding.

The huge movement of Jews who came from Eastern Europe to the US at the end of the 19th century included many klezmorim. The emergence of the recording industry, radio, and Yiddish theater in the US provided sources of work for the klezmer and produced many recordings that tell us what the music of the time sounded like. Jewish weddings still featured the traditional music. But as tastes changed and dance forms were forgotten, klezmer music became more of a nostalgia stimulator and the older klezmer repertoire diminished in size.
The 70’s saw the revival of many traditional world musics (e.g., Celtic, Balkan, “Old-Timey”, etc.) and fortunately klezmer music is among them. And just as Jews have lived all over the world, the klezmer revival has been a worldwide phenomenon. Berlin alone boasts over 30 klezmer bands, and there are klez bands from Australia, Alaska, and Buenos Aires. Alicia Svigals, of the Klezmatics, makes the point that “klezmer isn’t the music of an extinct culture…it’s a hardy piece of an evolving culture.” And nowadays, klezmer emerges in many mutations. Some groups like Brave Old World employ political lyrics while others like The Klezmatics utilize funk and even hip-hop. Other bands, such as Budowitz, endeavor to recapture traditional klezmer sounds played on 19th century instruments. As the old 78’s and radio recordings of the 30’s are lost, we can thank music historians and modern musicians who are working and playing to give this, our music, new life.

	Nahalat Shalom Community Klezmer Band
	Dancers at Klezmerquerque 2006
	Time for a honga!
	At Klezmerquerque 2006 dance party