With the cellist Ophélie Gaillard
MUSIQUES JUIVES D’HIER ET D’AUJOURD’HUI – TUESDAY NOVEMBER 20, 2018, JUDAÏQUES FM (94.8), 21H00. Radio program in French
The cellist Ophélie Gaillard, elected « soloist instrumental revelation » at the Victoires de la musique classique 2003, published in 2017 Exiles, a CD dedicated to European Jewish musicians (Bloch, Korngold…) forced to leave Europe for the USA in the first half of the 20th century.
This radio broadcast, in which one will hear the works of Bloch (From Jewish life), Korngold (Die Tote Stadt – Tanzlied des Pierrot) and traditional klezmer melodies, raise issues about the phenomena of culture transplantation. Between integration and reject, music, universal language and yet singular, becomes a mirror of this transformation.
The musical production of composers from ancient Europe, exiled to the USA during the raise of antisemitism and fascism, reflects this duality: between belonging and reject, nostalgia of a past world and hope of a better one.
This passage from one world to another is here enhanced by Ophélie Gaillard whose cello becomes spokesman of these millions of Jews who on one foggy morning arrived in Ellis Island.
In the booklet of the CD Exiles, the artist explains her approach : « The inevitable decentralisation provoked by the exile, the deprivation it implies can then welcome more freely a voice one wants to make his, an unknown language we domesticate. »
Listen to excerpts of the CD Exiles
Learn more about Ophélie Gaillard
Concert of Ophélie Gaillard at the ECUJE the 25th november 2018
Officer of the Ordre of Arts and letters, PhD in musicology at Paris University Sorbonne, prize-winning graduate from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, Hervé Roten is the director of the European Institute of Jewish Music since its creation in 2006.
Ethnomusicologist, he quickly developed an interest in the safeguard and digitization of archives, subjects he taught for several years in Reims and Marne-La-Vallée universities.
Author of many articles, books and recordings related to Jewish music, producer of radio programs, Hervé Roten is recognized today as one of the best specialists of Jewish music in the world.
