Discovering "Conversations: Musings and Harmonies from the American Jewish Cultural Expanse" - An Overview
In the vibrant cultural landscape of Los Angeles, the Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Music at UCLA's Herb Alpert School of Music is set to launch an exciting new series this year - "Conversations". This weekly undertaking promises to delve deep into the rich linguistic and musical heritage of Jewish languages and liturgical traditions.
Daniela Smolov Levy, a lecturer at the University of Southern California, will spearhead a five-part lecture series on the role of Jews in opera. Each lecture will be accompanied by a post reflecting her research, offering a unique perspective on this fascinating subject.
The series will also extend its focus to the multiple worlds of Jewish music in Brooklyn, NY. Smolov Levy's research will explore how Jewish Americans used music to create spaces in which "outsiders" could become authorities, and how changing attitudes towards gender and sexuality in the early 20th century informed the sound and culture of cantorial music.
The Malavsky Family Choir, led by Cantor Samuel Malavsky and featuring Goldie Malavsky, will be a significant focus of the series. The research will delve into the ways Jewish Americans used music to establish authority and how the changing attitudes towards gender and sexuality in the early 20th century influenced the sound and culture of cantorial music.
The chief author of "Conversations" is also translating Cantor Zawel Kwartin's Yiddish language autobiography, Mayn Lebn (My Life), and will provide regular updates from that project in the series.
Simone Salmon's research on Sephardi music and the post-Ottoman diaspora will also be presented in "Conversations", shedding light on a vital Jewish music scene.
The series will include curated excerpts from the Malavsky scrapbook and recordings, offering commentary and context. It aims to stimulate conversation, new listening, and debate about the life and meaning of American Jewish music.
In addition, the series will illuminate the lineages and help imagine the futures of American Jewish music through reports from present-day artists and stories culled from the archive. The series will offer a kind of musical census, providing updates over the course of the upcoming academic year.
The series will run for a year, featuring stories, sounds, and ideas from various scholars in the fields of musicology and Jewish Studies. It will also include interactive elements such as social media threads, specially convened Zoom meetings, and, with a bit of good fortune, in-person conversations.
In these transformative times, new uses of technology and reinvigorated approaches to older musical styles are creating new sounds and new forms of community. As music venues and worship services return, often modified as hybrid digital events, the series will expose artefacts of the pandemic period that continue to mediate between in-person and online experience.
The "Conversations" series will also draw parallels with the Biblical book of Numbers, in the weekly Torah reading referred to as Parshah Pinchas, where God instructed Moses to take an account of the people. In this spirit, the series will serve as a musical census, providing a comprehensive overview of the current state and future prospects of American Jewish music.
With a diverse array of guest authors yet to be announced, the series promises to open up a network of interconnected musical worlds, offering educational and cultural insights into Jewish language traditions, combining scholarly discussion with musical performance to demonstrate the diversity and vitality of Jewish musical expression across different communities and time periods.
- The "Conversations" series at UCLA's Herb Alpert School of Music, extending its focus beyond Los Angeles, will delve into the multiple worlds of Jewish music, exploring how Jewish Americans used music for education-and-self-development and creating spaces, particularly in Brooklyn, NY.
- The online-learning offerings of the "Conversations" series will include a unique perspective on American Jewish music, with topics ranging from the role of Jews in opera to Sephardi music, offering learning opportunities and entertainment for all who engage in the series' discussions and performances.
