A project of the American Society for Jewish Music
www.jewishmusic-asjm.org

















The Jewish Music Forum is an organization devoted to the study of music in Jewish life in all of its historical and contemporary diversity.  Founded in the fall of 2004 under the auspices of the American Society for Jewish Music , with the support of the American Jewish Historical Society and the Center for Jewish History ,the Jewish Music Forum seeks to provide a thriving habitat for interdisciplinary dialogue and scholarly exchange in the growing academic field of Jewish musical studies as well as a criticalintellectual resource for specialists across a spectrum that includes cantors, composers, performers, students, educators, artistic directors, journalists, and others from the fields of musicology, anthropology, literature, Jewish studies, and American studies. By linking together members of these communities, the Forum serves as an academic professional network and intellectual resource for all who are interested in the role of music in Jewish life.


2009-10 SEASON

Our next event of the season:

March 5, 2010
Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street
New York, NY
10:30 A.M.
"Sacred and Secular Music Texts in Modern Times"
With Professor Mark Slobin, Wesleyan University and Dr. Mark Kligman, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion
Co-sponsored by the Working Group on the Jewish Book at Center for Jewish History

This event is FREE to the public. 

Prof. Mark Slobin is an American scholar and ethnomusicologist who has written extensively on the subject of East European Jewish music and klezmer music. He is a Professor of Music and American Studies at Wesleyan University. He has been the president of the Society for Ethnomusicology and the Society for Asian Music. Two of his books on Jewish music have won the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award.

Dr. Mark Kligman is Professor of Jewish Musicology at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York where he teaches in the School of Sacred Music.

"Sacred and Secular Music Texts in Modern Times" Manuscripts containing music in Jewish contexts are significantly rare, prior to 1750 there are less than 25 notations. By 1750 and onwards notation of Jewish liturgical music, and later non-liturgical music, becomes a growing phenomenon. The Eduard Birnbaum Collection of Jewish Liturgical manuscripts, in the Klau Library of Hebrew Union College--Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, is the largest collection of contains 65% of all known manuscripts of Jewish music prior to 1850. Mark Kligman will discuss the various music styles found with in these manuscripts and show a significant degree of secular influence in the 18th century. With the developments of Haskalah synagogue music changed significantly, through recorded example of the music in this collection Kligman will discuss the important changes of synagogue music in the 19th century.

In "Yiddish Theater and Popular Music: Manuscript and Print Sources" Professor Mark Slobin will summarize his work on early twentieth-century Yiddish popular music, from both Europe and the US, based on manuscript sources held at YIVO, and sheet music editions published in New York's Lower East Side during the immigrant era. The manuscripts serve as information about the interaction of music and theater as well as performance practice in a largely improvisatory music theater system. Slobin will examine how sheet music folio bundles integrate iconography, song text, and music style. Finally, issues of Americanization and commercialization of European genres, themes, and styles will be explored.

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Click here to view PDF - Complete list of presenters:
JMF Lecture Series Jan. 2005 to April 2010


The Jewish Music Forum lecture/discussion series gratefully acknowledges the support of
the American Society for Jewish Music and the American Jewish Historical Society,
at the Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street, New York City


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Last updated: January 12, 2010.