DavidovParagraph

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, a huge band gathers onstage to play a song off downtown Radical Jewish Music artist Aaron Alexander. Alexander has been the drummer for just about everyone else, but this is a piece as far different from klezmer as Yaella Hertz’ piece was, but this time, instead of being grounded in impeccable classicism, the piece is grounded in Jewish music and goes far into the world of new music, jazz, Josh Dolgin’s samples, and stuff I don’t yet know how to describe. And as I watch and listen, enjoying the newness and reflecting on the previous couple of pieces and how they stretched what I thought I knew about Jewish music and I have a moment of clarity. There is a picture at the National Yiddish Book Center of a table in a library in pre-Holocaust Vilna. At the table are luminaries from every aspect of Jewish culture: modern Orthodoxy, socialism, Zionism, and categories in between and overlapping. Everytime I look at that image I reflect that there will never again be such a table. The gaps between those groups are too deep and too bitter. They will never again share the same library, much less the same table. But then, as I look on stage at the folks playing with Alexander I realize that there is a similar diversity and extremism: folks who span the gaps from determinedly secular to modern Orthodox, folks who normally explore hasidic music or traditional klezmer or Yiddish song to the avant garde, and here they are on stage not just studying together, but playing excitedly together. This stage, here at KlezKanada, is our table in Vilna, the place where Jewish cultures come together and share ideas and show us just how much the klezmer revival of the 1980s and 1990s has been replaced by an incredible Yiddishe Renaissance today. It is a wonderful time to be alive and to be present.

	A paragraph from Ari Davidov's weblog from Klez Kanada. He is describing the faculty concert on Thursday night. complete text here
	Somewhere in the middle of all of this, a huge band gathers onstage to play a song off downtown Radical Jewish Music artist Aaron Alexander. Alexander has been the drummer for just about everyone else, but this is a piece as far different from klezmer as Yaella Hertz’ piece was, but this time, instead of being grounded in impeccable classicism, the piece is grounded in Jewish music and goes far into the world of new music, jazz, Josh Dolgin’s samples, and stuff I don’t yet know how to describe. And as I watch and listen, enjoying the newness and reflecting on the previous couple of pieces and how they stretched what I thought I knew about Jewish music and I have a moment of clarity. There is a picture at the National Yiddish Book Center of a table in a library in pre-Holocaust Vilna. At the table are luminaries from every aspect of Jewish culture: modern Orthodoxy, socialism, Zionism, and categories in between and overlapping. Everytime I look at that image I reflect that there will never again be such a table. The gaps between those groups are too deep and too bitter. They will never again share the same library, much less the same table. But then, as I look on stage at the folks playing with Alexander I realize that there is a similar diversity and extremism: folks who span the gaps from determinedly secular to modern Orthodox, folks who normally explore hasidic music or traditional klezmer or Yiddish song to the avant garde, and here they are on stage not just studying together, but playing excitedly together. This stage, here at KlezKanada, is our table in Vilna, the place where Jewish cultures come together and share ideas and show us just how much the klezmer revival of the 1980s and 1990s has been replaced by an incredible Yiddishe Renaissance today. It is a wonderful time to be alive and to be present.