Sounding Jewish in Berlin
Year: 2021
Type: book
Abstract: This book explores in lively detail the music, musical networks, and performance spaces of the contemporary Berlin klezmer and Yiddish music scene. It chronicles an avowedly international group of musicians (Jewish and non-Jewish) who collectively represent an important new transnational voice for this traditional Eastern European Jewish music. Through the words and music of the performers, the author reveals a rich and constantly developing scene that has embedded itself in the contemporary city in creative, diverse, and sometimes confrontational ways. This ongoing transformation of Berlin klezmer is powerful evidence that if traditional music is to remain audible amid the noise of the urban, it must stake its claim as a meaningful part of that noise. By engaging with the city itself, klezmer in Berlin has moved beyond “revival”—revealing how traditional culture can remain relevant within a shifting, overlapping, decidedly modern, urban cosmopolitanism.
Author: Phil Alexander
Institution: University of Glasgow
Language: English
Topic: Music History and Culture
Subfield: Music
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4248823920