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This book tells the story of Berlin's dynamic klezmer scene, tracing the ongoing dialogue between traditional Yiddish folk music and the creativity and modern urbanity of the German capital. It reveals how contemporary klezmer has become not only a product but also a producer of the city.
List of contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Notes on Translation, Orthography, Interviews and Recordings
- Chapter 1: Why Berlin? Why Klezmer?
- Chapter 2: The Music in Berlin: Musical Networks
- Chapter 3: The Music in Berlin: Spaces and Places
- Chapter 4: Placing Berlin in the Music
- Chapter 5: Sounding Jewish in Berlin
- Chapter 6: Curating the Tradition: Dissemination, Learning, and Responsibility
- Chapter 7: Performing Berlin: The Silence of the City (Postlude)
- Chapter 8: Conclusion
- Appendix 1: A Brief Overview of Klezmer Music
- Appendix 2: Interview Information
- Bibliography
About the author
Phil Alexander is a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Reid School of Music at the University of Edinburgh, where he researches Scottish-Jewish musical encounters. Besides klezmer music and urban space, his published research also explores Edinburgh salsa, Holocaust memorial silence, synagogue cantors in early twentieth-century Glasgow, and accordions.
Summary
This book tells the story of Berlin's dynamic klezmer scene, tracing the ongoing dialogue between traditional Yiddish folk music and the creativity and modern urbanity of the German capital. It reveals how contemporary klezmer has become not only a product but also a producer of the city.
Additional text
With this rich, incisive account of klezmer's reinvention in contemporary Berlin, Phil Alexander makes a compelling contribution to the scholarship of contemporary urban musics, reaching beyond well-worn narratives of heritage, multiculturalism and appropriation to demonstrate how musical practices are produced by — and share in producing — the city around them.
