If I were an ethnomusicologist…, with Ilya Shneyveys

Lecture #67 in Joshua Horowitz’s series, The Promiscuous World of Jewish Music

If I were an ethnomusicologist…, Excerpts from the Emilis Melngailis Jewish music collection and the variegated career of a song, with Ilya Shneyveys

Monday, January 24, 2022, 11am Pacific Time, Please calculate your own time zone with this: https://dateful.com/time-zone-converter

Length: 1 – 2 hours

Zoom Meeting ID: 967 8901 9038

Password: 156230

Although the Zoom limit is 100 participants, there’s always plenty of room. You do not need to register; simply use the sign-in info above.

Donations to Josh Horowitz are accepted and appreciated, but not required.

What started back in 1899 in Lithuania as a chance encounter with Jewish folk music became a life-long obsession with ethnomusicology for the Latvian composer Emilis Melngailis. Over a century later, what can we learn from his fragmented and inconsistent, yet unique and important Jewish music collection? This presentation offers a glimpse into the repertoire, which contains both popular and unique Yiddish and Hebrew language songs, nigunim and instrumental pieces. We will also examine a fascinating career development of an old Yiddish song about coping mechanisms for unemployment-related depression.

Ilya Shneyveys is a klezmer musician, accordionist, multi-instrumentalist, conductor, arranger, composer, producer, educator and a stay-at-home ethnomusicologist. He has been researching and pushing the limits of traditional Ashkenazi music and culture for close to 20 years, teaching and performing at major festivals around the world. Originally from Riga, Latvia, he currently resides in Brooklyn, NY. 

About Joshua Horowitz»