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Lecture: Banjew - A Century of the Banjo in Klezmer Music
Wednesday December 25, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST
507 - Hebrew Union College
The mass emigration of Eastern European Jews to the United States in the late 19th century occurred while the banjo was a dominant force in popular music. And, while Jews did not become involved in the older, more established worlds of minstrel banjo or of the later classic fingerstyle banjo, the newly emerging worlds of ragtime and jazz – and the brash new instrument, the tenor – offered an unfettered ground floor for this new collaboration. 

Starting in 1925, recordings by Alexander Olshanetsky's Orchestra, Joseph Cherniavksy's Hasidic-American Jazz Band, Abe Schwartz, Dave Tarras, and more, reveal how the banjo not only became a mainstream Jewish presence in the Yiddish theater but also how traditional old-time klezmer bands adapted traditional rhythmic figures onto it. 

The talk will also cover my reintroducing the banjo in the mid-1970s klezmer “revival” and its subsequent worldwide renaissance today, featuring the music of Mark Rubin, Andy Rubin, Jerry Wicentowski, Nefesh Mountain, Dobronotch, and myself.
Speakers
avatar for Henry Sapoznik

Henry Sapoznik

Henry Sapoznik (history) is an award winning record and radio producer, author, ethnomusicologist in the fields of Yiddish and American popular and traditional culture. Sapoznik, a native Yiddish speaker and child of Holocaust survivors, helped jump-start the klezmer “revival... Read More →
Wednesday December 25, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST
507 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012
  Lecture (Hybrid)

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