Plenary Session for all!

This is our very first meeting with all workshop participants, everybody together, we will learn a tune and spend some time getting to know everybody who we'll spend the weekend with. 

Instrumental Workshop 

with Ilya Shneyveys

Learn from Ilya Shneyveys about the mysteries of klezmer. 

Introduction to Klezmer Music 

with Szilvia Csaranko

Yiddish Song Workshop

with Daniel Kahn and Sasha Lurje

Singing in Yiddish, 1300-1750

with Diana Matut

The history of Yiddish reaches back into the middle ages -- and so does singing in Yiddish. This lecture introduces sources, songs and singers from those centuries and answers the question: how much is reconstructed and how much do we know about the performance of these songs. And: we delve into the history of prohibitions and of women who kept singing.

Lunch

Instrumental Workshop

with Susi Evans

Interview with Muzsikàs

A conversation with the legendary musicians about their music, process and how research becomes a stage performance. 

Singing for a besere velt 

with Derek David

Yiddish Literature as a Response to Apocalypse

with Katerina Kuznetsova

“Yiddish Literature as a Response to Apocalypse” explores how poets and writers have used Yiddish to confront the major tragedies of Jewish history. Since becoming a written language, Yiddish has been a medium for reflecting on loss, violence, and survival. The 20th century in particular—marked by pogroms, World War I, the destruction of the shtetl, and the Holocaust—was both the most devastating era for Jewish communities and the most prolific periods for Yiddish literature.

Alongside this literary tradition, one urgent question has remained: who needs Yiddish when the world is ending? Will there be another generation to read these texts?

In this session, we will examine selected examples of Yiddish poetry and prose to explore different responses to historical trauma and radical change, and discuss the role of literature in preserving memory and imagining survival after catastrophe.

Instrumental Workshop

with Alan Bern

Yiddish Song Workshop

with Daniel Kahn and Sasha Lurje

From One Root? Ashkenazic and German Folk Culture

Lecture with Andreas Schmitges

In 2011 and 2012, Yiddish Summer Weimar explored the connections between Yiddish and German folk music — their history, present, and future. These years were eye-opening and inspiring in many ways, and projects such as AlpenKlezmer and Voices of Ashkenaz emerged from this work. Since then, Andreas Schmitges has continued researching this field and will present how Ashkenazic and German folk cultures interact and connect through song, dance, and instrumental music.