1) Posting an interview with Susan Watts on the “History” page

2) Posting a group interview with attendees at the Stiffel Senior Center Yiddish group, also on the “History” page

3) Cleaning up the “Audio” and “Video” pages to make them easier to navigate

4) Updating the “Events” page

Check back over the next few weeks for more updates!

Kehillah of Center City Funds the Musical Initiatives Project at Congregation Kol Tzedek

Thanks to a grant from Federation’s Kehillah of Center City, the Philadelphia sher, a klezmer song and dance, is making a comeback!

Meredith Aska McBride, University of Pennsylvania senior, is an active participant Kol Tzedek’s Philadelphia Sher Project. McBride has been taking lessons with the eminent klezmer trumpeter Susan Watts, whose family has deep roots in the Philadelphia Jewish music scene. Along with the Kol Tzedek Simcha Band, McBride learned to play the sher, a klezmer song with deep roots in the city, but known by very few people today.

Last month, the group performed with renowned drummer Elaine Hoffman Watts, (Susan’s mom). Congregant Naomi Segal, who danced the sher as a child, taught the dance to concert attendees. “People had a great time dancing and the band certainly had a great time playing,” said McBride.

“Without Federation’s grant the Philadelphia sher would remain a hidden treasure,” noted Kol Tzedek’s rabbi, Lauren Grabelle Herrmann. She added, “Our Musical Initiatives Program aims to educate Jews about this rich spiritual and cultural legacy and to integrate music into the fabric of community life.”

The $2,250 grant funded Kol Tzedek’s Musical Initiatives Program, which includes two projects. The Davening Leaders Program trains 5-10 community members to become proficient prayer leaders, and the Philadelphia Sher Project aims to return this klezmer song and dance to active use. Community members will participate in the project through research, performance and education.

Federation’s Department of Jewish Life and Learning has seven Kehillot–community outreach arms–which foster collaboration among community institutions and provide a venue for interaction and cooperation.

Each Kehillah allocates Community Partnership Grants within its geographic area, like the one given to the Musical Initiatives Program. For more information on these grants and how to apply, contact Rabbi Shira Stutman at sstutman@jfgp.org or 215.832.0856.

For additional information about the Kehillah of Center City and its grants, contact Susan Stanek at sstanek@jfgp.org or 215.832.0597.

The first clip is of the band warming up (including special guests Susan and Elaine Hoffman Watts and Dan Blacksberg).  What I find most interesting about this clip is how two groups of people who aren’t used to playing together (i.e., Susan, Elaine and Dan, and the Simcha Band) find out ways to integrate sound, personnel, and equipment fairly rapidly.

The second clip is a recording of our Chanukah blessings and songs.  The whole assembled congregation joins in and contributes what they can musically (whether improvised on an instrument, or vocally), which I think is a nice metaphor for how Kol Tzedek works.

In the third clip, founding member Naomi Segal teaches everyone how to dance the sher.  I like how she combines straightforward instruction with jokes and personal interpretations of each step.  Furthermore, she adapts the dance to the needs of the community at the time–encouraging small children to sit on their parents’ shoulders and “silly moves.”

The fourth clip is of the “real deal”–the full performance of the sher with band and dancers.  We sounded good and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.  We came a long way from our September 22 lesson!

I find the clips labeled “Playthrough of tune 2 and some stylistic modifications” and “Tunes 3 and 4 and ‘simpler is better’ discussion” particularly interesting.  You can get a good sense of the progress we’ve made by this point (or haven’t made), but you can also get a sense for how Susan conceptualizes the sher, and the subtle ways in which klezmer style can be changed and personalized within set limits.

Despite the fact that I (Meredith Aska McBride) sound comically “classical” in the clips labeled “Susan and Meredith discuss vibrato” and “Susan working with Meredith on violin technique,” I still think they’re worth a listen if you’re interested in comparing and contrasting classical vs. klezmer style.  Susan is quite explicit about the ways I should think about my klezmer playing and how that differs from my typical style, and I think that the ways I try to negotiate this stylistic transition are sort of interesting.

The first recording in the list (labeled “Sightreading the first tune of the sher”) makes our musical backgrounds pretty obvious.  For example, while I am able to read the music pretty well in terms of pitch and rhythm, I clearly have no real concept of how to translate the klezmer style I’ve heard in recordings to my instrument (violin).

I grew up playing primarily classical music and a little bit of Irish fiddle, and it shows: I play everything as closely as possible to what is written on the sheet music in front of me, and use typical classical techniques such as vibrating on every note.  By our final playthrough, I’m doing marginally better, but still struggling with understanding what constitutes tasteful klezmer style.

Sherri, on the other hand, is facing a different set of musical challenges.  She is a very good trombonist whose primary experience is in school bands.  She has attended KlezKamp and played in Kol Tzedek’s klezmer band for a few years.  Therefore, she has a better grasp of the style and is able to improvise–she can look at a lead sheet and figure things out on her feet better than I can.  However, she’s not quite as comfortable with sightreading.

Susan, of course, knows exactly what she’s doing, has a distinctive voice on her instrument (trumpet), and tries various teaching techniques to explain to me and Sherri how we should approach performing in a new style.  Listen to a few of the clips and see how we progress throughout the lesson.  We sound much better–if not great!–by the clip titled “Final playthrough” than we did in the first clip.  And Susan has quite a few words of musical wisdom embedded in each track.