Singing in Yiddish in the Middle Ages?! with Diana Matut

Lecture #54 in Joshua Horowitz’s series, The Promiscuous World of Jewish Music

Singing in Yiddish in the Middle Ages?! with Diana Matut

Monday, July 26, 11am Pacific Time/2pm New York/ 7pm London/ 8pm Paris/ 9pm Tel Aviv. Please confirm the local time.

Length: 1 – 2 hours

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

Zoom Meeting ID: 967 8901 9038
Password: 156230

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To speak about “Yiddish Song” in the Middle Ages may be misleading. Did Yiddish even exist then as an entity in its own right? And what consequences arise from our current assumptions? As far as sources go, no musical notation exists for any Yiddish text of the period, so we have to ask ourselves which texts might have been sung and just how were they sung. Is there any direct evidence of melodies and performance practices or do we rely on co-territorial cultures to make our conclusions? This presentation will address these issues head on with a mind toward expanding our understanding the problems and offering possible methods of performance practice.

About Joshua Horowitz»

This project has been made possible in part by a grant from the Alliance for California Traditional Arts, in partnership with the Walter & Elise Haas Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Grants for the Arts, and The California Endowment.