Mayko-Mashmelon: A Survey of Yiddish Art Song

A virtual event presentation by Anthony Russell

About the Event:
In the 20th century, Yiddish art song acted as a kind of performative repository of Ashkenazi Jewish music-making of all kinds, containing elements of khazones and liturgical music, Eastern European folk song, Yiddish theatre music, and Chassidic music, as well as popular and art music of the time. In this session, we’ll take a brief survey of the genre and explore the meaning it had to its performers and its audiences.

About the Speaker:
Anthony Russell is a multidisciplinary artist specializing in Yiddish culture. Anthony’s work with Klezmer trio Veretski Pass resulted in Convergence, an exploration of a century of African-American and Ashkenazi Jewish music. His recent release on the Borscht Beat label with accordionist and keyboardist Dmitri Gaskin, Kosmopolitn, features their original settings of Yiddish modernist poetry for voice and string ensemble. Anthony has also been an essayist in several publications, including The Forward, Tablet Magazine, JTA, PROTOCOLS, Full Stop Magazine, Ayin Press, and Jewish Currents. He lives in Atlanta with his husband of eight years, Rabbi Michael Rothbaum.

All of the music is played from: https://rsa.fau.edu/judaic