From Frank London, Artistic Director
We deeply mourn the passing of our beloved friend, colleague, teacher, inspiration – the amazing Adrienne Cooper z”l. Her life, work, activism and indomitable presence will be at the center of all our thoughts and activities. We dedicate the 2012 KlezKanada Laurentian Retreat to her memory.
For 2012, KlezKanada presents an almost overwhelming wealth of the best of Yiddish and Jewish music, dance, language, culture, letters and lectures. Our special “North-South” focus looks at Yiddishkayt in South America, particularly in Argentina. Our theme – Carnival.
Performers and teachers will feature complete bands including The Klezmatics (Grammy award winning klezmer group from New York), and the KlezKanada debuts of the astounding Argentinian duo Moguilevsky and Lerner and OPA, the powerful punk klezmer ska balkan collective from St. Petersburg, Russia. Long time favorites the Strauss-Warschauer Duo and the thrilling Parisian-based, Argentinian-born Yiddish tango singer and film star Jacinta will join us. After a brief absence, Michael ‘Meyshke’ Alpert returns, and so many others.
Special new musical foci and first time teachers include world renowned cantor and cantorial teacher, Chazzn Jacob Ben-Zion ‘Jackie’ Mendelson (a New Yorker with deep Montreal roots – his uncle Nathan Mendelson was khazn & moyel for 35 years at Congregation Shaar Hashomayim). He will connect the worlds of klezmer and chazzones as he teaches singers and instrumentalists the sounds and soul of an old-world cantor. The world of the deeply rooted contemporary Jewish avant garde ‘Radical’ New Jewish Music will be taught by the pianists Anthony Coleman (of NYC, a colleague of John Zorn, Marc Ribot, and countless others) and KlezKanada’s own Marilyn Lerner.
We welcome our new coordinator of lectures, Evelyn Tauben, who lets us know that the rich, vibrant story of Yiddish Montreal is the subject of three new books this year: Sara Ferdman Tauben’s Traces of the Past: Montreal’s Early Synagogues; Chantal Ringuet’s À la découverte du Montréal yiddish, and Rebecca Margolis’ Jewish Roots, Canadian Soil: Yiddish Culture in Montreal, 1905-45. We hope to feature all of the authors in presenting their books and work if possible. Photographer David Kaufman, a long timer at KlezKanada, not only took the photos for Traces of the Past, but will also have his own exhibition and may include screenings of his films on A M Klein and Brave Old World’s Lodz Ghetto program.
In addition to our fantastic Yiddish faculty – Michael Wex, Kolya Bordulin, Itzik Gottesman and others, we are thrilled to invite the amazing Abraham Lichtenboym from Buenos Aires.
We have not run out of big news. We are thrilled to announce the debut of a new branch of KlezKanada’s summer program: the “KlezKanada Poetry Retreat (Three Millenia of Poetic Subversion)”, North America’s first Jewish poetry intensive retreat. The poetry seminar will be led by our ‘Minister of Dialectical Hermeneutics’, the Canadian poet and professor Adeena Karasick, and Ukrainian – Israeli – New York jazz talmudist and porritz, Jake Marmer. One of the strengths of KlezKanda is our inter-disciplinary philosophy; music, dance, theater, visual arts and Yiddishkayt are all taught, practiced, woven together and complement each other. Our Poetry Initiative will be defined by both its unique Jewish identity and its close connection to music and the other arts. The program will be open to writers in all languages (French, English, Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, etc.), but our unique program would give all the writers the chance to encounter, explore, and potentially deepen their connection to Yiddish through our lectures, language courses, and Yiddish song programs.
Adeena and Jake write, “Two daily workshop sessions will explore the poetic tradition and anti-tradition across the three millenia of Jewish discourse, with a special focus on the avant-garde and otherwise contemporary work. We’ll look at the ecstatic tradition of poetry-prophecy; Talmud and its dialectic-semiotic heritage; practice of Darshening; Uncreative Writing; Kabbalistic language experiments; Concrete Poetry; Jazz/Klezmer Poetry; Yiddish voices; Modernists – and much more. There will be one-on-one time with the faculty and sit-ins with esteemed special guests; writers, musicians, academics, artists. Poets will be encouraged to draw inspiration from the numerous concerts, and to form collaborations with musicians, dancers, painters and other participating artists, to attend lectures, Yiddish classes, sing, dance, celebrate.”
Of course, we continue our Teens & Youth programming, and this will be the second year of the KK/McGill Summer Institute. Our annual dance party led by Steve Weintraub will be a Carnival spectacle, with community drumming and dancing led by Cesar Lerner and Richie Barshay. New Yiddish Songs and song writing will be explored by Dan Kahn and special guests.
2012 looks to continue the exceptional experience of KlezKanada. Come. Bring friends. And friends of friends.
