Josh Waletzky and Deborah Strauss were interviewed today (December 20, 2017) about Yiddish New York by Jonathan Capehart on WNYC’s Leonard Lopate Show. Click the player below to listen.
News
YNY Press Release December 2017
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http://conta.cc/2AUVLRl
Announcing the New York Debut of Veretski Pass!
About YNY Headliners Veretski Pass:
Veretski Pass is Cookie Segelstein (violin, viola), Joshua Horowitz -(cimbalom, chromatic button accordion, piano), Stuart Brotman (bass, basy, tilinca, baraban).
In Eastern Europe, the roots of world music go back centuries. Jews and Moslems, Magyars, Romanians, Ukrainians and Roma played music together in an atmosphere of sharing, in a multicultural area where professional musicians had to know as many musical styles as the diverse languages of the people with whom they lived and worked. Across the Veretski Pass — the mountain pass in the Carpathians through which Magyar tribes into crossed into the Carpathian basin in 895 AD, and through which the emigrating Jews first settled in Transcarpathia — the musical traditions were as varied as the people who lived there.
Taking its name from this cultural hotbed, Veretski Pass offers a unique and exciting combination of virtuosic musicianship and raw energy that has excited concertgoers across the world. With colorful instrumentation, unique arrangements and compositions, Veretski Pass plays “old country” music; music with origins in the Ottoman Empire, once fabled as the borderlands of the East and the West. In a true collage of Carpathian, Jewish, Rumanian and Ottoman styles, typical suites contain dances from Moldavia and Bessarabia, Jewish melodies from Poland and Rumania, Hutzul wedding music from Carpathian Ruthenia, and haunting Rebetic aires from Smyrna, seamlessly integrated with original compositions.
Much of this rare music has been gleaned from field recordings gathered by the musicians in numerous trips throughout Europe, as well as from family members. Often touring in Europe, they have twice been chosen as ambassadors representing traditional Jewish Instrumental Music of Eastern Europe for the German World Exhibition of Klezmer History (Klezmerwelten) and have headlined the Jewish Music Festival of the University of London. They recently performed at the prestigious Concertgebouw Concert Hall in Amsterdam to a sold out audience with a standing ovation, and their CDs have repeatedly been on the 10-best recordings lists of journalists. Cookie’s unique violin style was featured for a Jewish wedding scene on HBO’s “Sex and the City,” and Josh and Stu’s compositions provided the music for Jes Benstock’s award-winning film The Holocaust Tourist.
Our Non-Discrimination/Harassment Policy
Yiddish New York is a community-based and community-created festival. We value a diversity of participation and viewpoints, and equity in our actions. We believe that the arts we practice — music, theater, dance, visual, literary, culinary, film, social justice, and other — are primary means of cultural continuity, and we are in an ongoing process of discovery and creation that we believe is most effective, fun, creative, and meaningful when done under a large and welcoming tent.
Yiddish New York welcomes and does not discriminate against any faculty or participant based on age, race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, class, sexual orientation, gender or perceived gender identification, or levels of physical ability. Our audience-specific programs (such as our scholarship program) do not constitute discrimination, but rather constitute targeted outreach to increase participation by historically underrepresented groups.
Yiddish New York has a zero tolerance policy towards acts of discrimination, harassment, or violence towards any festival participant or staff member, that might be based on one of these categories of personhood. Patrons or staff who discriminate against or harm others will be removed from the festival. No ticket refund will be issued to patrons who discriminate against or harm others.
If festival participant or staff experiences discrimination, harassment, or violence from staff or another festival participant while at Yiddish New York, or while engaging in Yiddish New York business, they are welcome to report the incident(s) to any of the YNY Curators/Organizers listed below. In turn, the Curator/Organizer who has received the report will relay the information to the rest of the committee to investigate, and if the complaint is confirmed, will remove that person from the festival. In the event that discrimination, harassment, or violence is conducted by one or more Curators/Organizers, you are welcome to report the incident(s) to other Curators/Organizers.
Thank you for helping to make Yiddish New York a safe space for our diverse community!
YNY 2023 Curators/Organizers: Aaron Bendich, Edy Borger, Nicole Borger, Sarah Gordon, Esther Gottesman, Itzik Gottesman, Tine Kindermann, Jeyn Levison, Frank London, Ethel Raim, Pete Rushefsky, Deborah Strauss, Judy Sweet, Josh Waletzky YNY Coordinator: Clara Byom
2017 Press Release: YNY Returns to the Lower East Side
NEW YORK, NY, August 15 – Yiddish New York (YNY), the nation’s largest workshop/festival celebrating Yiddish language and culture — including its signature music, klezmer — is proud to announce a return for its third year, taking place from Saturday evening, December 23rd to Thursday, December 28th, 2017. YNY 2017 will feature leading performers and scholars of Yiddish culture.