Lectures filmed on October 20, 2024 at the MAHJ Auditorium (Paris)

As part of the Colloque Ashkenazi music in France, at concerts or in synagogue, October 20 & 21, 2024

Originally, klezmer refers^[1]The term derives from the Hebrew kli zemer, which literally means “instruments of song”. to instrumental music played in Eastern European Jewish communities at weddings, official ceremonies and certain religious holidays, where instrumental practice was tolerated by the rabbinical authorities. This music declined in Europe at the turn of the 20th century, before being virtually wiped out by the Holocaust. But it survived in the USA, where many Jewish klezmer musicians had settled, fleeing pogroms and poverty. After the war, klezmer music fell out of fashion, but in the 1970s, a few passionate musicians^[2]These include pioneering clarinetist Giora Feidman, saxophonist Lev Liberman (The Klezmorim), Henry Sapoznik (Kapelye), Andy Statman (Andy Statman Klezmer Orchestra), Zev Feldman, Michael Alpert, … Lire la suite contributed to its revival. From the USA, this “new wave” of klezmer soon reached Europe and Israel. In 1983, clarinettist Nano Peylet and pianist Denis Cuniot founded the first French klezmer music group: the Peylet-Cuniot duo. Since then, the klezmer wave has continued to spread.

This second part of the symposium on “Ashkenazi music in France” retraces the evolution and transmission of klezmer music in France from 1983 to the present day, including an overview of current practices.