UNITED KINGDOM: JEWISH FESTIVAL CELEBRATES TRADITIONAL KLEZMER MUSIC AND ARAB-ISRAELI GROUPS

Record ID: 389816

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: JEWISH FESTIVAL CELEBRATES TRADITIONAL KLEZMER MUSIC AND ARAB-ISRAELI GROUPS
  • Date: 2nd July 2000
  • Summary: LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM (RECENT) (REUTERS) WIDE , NAZIHA AZZOUZ AND ADEL SALAMEH AND ASAF SIRKIS PERFORMING (7.32) PAN , AUDIENCE APPLAUDING (7.45)
  • Embargoed: 17th July 2000 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Entertainment,General,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA7WHVCQD96O12Y5P6MHZYMIDQC
  • Story Text: Musicians from all over the world are flocking to London to take part in what is being hailed as the biggest Jewish music festival in the world. Klezmer bands, Arab-Israeli ensembles and Yiddish cabaret groups will be performing over the next couple of months in venues throughout the city, from the Barbican and South Bank to Finchley synagogue.
    These Argentinian boys aren't used to playing in a venue like this one. The Jewish Museum's little synagogue in north London is a little different to the gigs they play in their native Buenos Aires, but this klezmer duo is delighted to be part of what is being tipped as the biggest Jewish music festival in the world.
    It's also a change for them to have a klezmer-hungry audience. Their passion for old Hassidic songs dating back as far as the seventeenth century isn't shared by most people in Argentina. There's a large Jewish community but unlike London which is currently enjoying a revival of the party music of Eastern European Jews, the world of klezmer has been hidden from Argentinians for the past thirty years, as Moguilevsky says " we want to show Argentinians this treasure, recommunicate back to our roots. Klezmer's not popular in Buenos Aires, because it's been forgotten - you don't really hear it anywhere - but we're trying to reestablish that link."
    And if anyone's capable of creating an appetite for this music it's Klezmer en Buenos Aires. They might be playing with a traditional, even ancient form, but their sound is very contemporary. Their improvisations on the endless instruments at their disposal are breathtaking; these are true virtuosos.
    The melodic, almost wailing yearning that suddenly explodes into mad energy is very much klezmer, but the jazz and at times tango influences are clearly there: Lerner - "I grew up listening to Yiddish music, tango and the Beatles - so you can draw your own conclusions when you listen to my music."
    Not surprisingly, a very diverse mix of people came to the concert, from Yiddish students to Ukrainian Jews to people just excited by the idea of South Americans playing Jewish music from eastern Europe.
    It's this mix of cultures that makes Jewish music so interesting, as the director of the festical, Geraldine Auerbach says "Jews have lived in so many places all over the world, over so many centuries, and they have borrowed and lent to the host cultures, and therefore Jewish music is in a way a microcosm of world music."
    One of the most interesting collaborations at the festival is between renowned Arabic oud player Adel Salemeh, Israeli percussionist Asaf Zirkis and Algerian singer Naziha Azzouz.
    They are playing primarily with old Arabic forms of music that Salameh has modelled his compositions on. Like klezmer, it's a culture long past, but although you can't hear this music anywhere today, not even in Arabic countries, Salameh is determined to keep playing his oud, and has proved that there is certainly an audience for it.
    He's also determined to use his music as a tool to promote tolerance and understanding between enemy nations. "I thought it would be a good thing for us Arabs and Israelis to meet together and do music together - to create more of an understanding between each other, to know more about each other's background and culture through music". Although Jewish music from the Andalucian period does feature, Israeli percussionist Asaf Zirkis has had to get his hands round very different rhythms and instruments to those used in Jewish music. It's not been easy: "Working with Adel was very easy for me. I mean, in terms of mentality, I discovered actually how much we are the same in terms of how we act, react to certain things. And this is on the personal level, very easy.
    But on the musical level I think I had to learn a lot of things. I mean of course, being an Israeli I was exposed to a lot of Arabic music from all sides of the Arabic world but never really got into it very deeply until I met Adel."
    Salameh recently played in Tel Aviv in Israel for the first time. He was suddenly struck by the extent to which Israeli and Arab don't know each other. "We live next door to each other and we do not know much about each other's cultures, about each other, the way we think. And I think this is sad, this is very sad, because to be able to communicate with you I need to be able to understand you."
    Music is a start, and according to Salameh, there will come a day when Arabs and Israelis will live together in peace. "We have no other solution, we have no other alternative. The only solution we have is to learn how to live together because we did it in Spain - Arab and Jew - and we did it Morocco, in Algeria ... we did it for centuries, throughout history. We must learn how to do it again."
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