Conference: Music and the Jewish World: Expression Across Real and Imaginary Boundaries

Hosted by the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies and the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto, and supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2017

7:30PM | Lecture Recital

Location: Father Madden Hall, Carr Hall, St. Michael's College, 100 St. Joseph Street

'And from the Ruins of Time, They Blossom': Tragedy and Transcendence in Viktor Ullmann's The Chronicle of the Love and Death of the Flag-Bearer Christoph Rilke (1944)

Philip V. Bohlman (University of Chicago), narrator

Christine Wilkie Bohlman (University of Chicago), piano

Viktor Ullmann's melodrama for dramatic speaker and piano, set to a text by Rainer Maria Rilke and composed at Theresienstadt/Terezín, was the final work created for the stage of the concentration camps during the Shoah.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2017

9:00AM–5:30PM | Lectures and Panels

Location: Jackman Humanities Building, Room 100, 170 St. George Street

9:00–9:30AM | Arrival + Coffee

9:30–10:30AM | Keynote Address

Chair: Jeff Packman (University of Toronto)

Benjamin Brinner (University of California Berkeley), "Music in Israel: Forty Years of Shifting Boundaries, Connections, and Possibilities"

10:30–10:45AM | Coffee Break

10:45–12:15PM | Panel I: Western Art Music and the Jewish World

Chair: Steven Vande Moortele (University of Toronto)

Caryl Clark (University of Toronto), "Handel, Salomon, Haydn, Creation"

Sherry Lee (University of Toronto), "Traces: Bloch, Mahler, Adorno"

Dan Deutsch (University of Toronto), "Fragmenting Monumentality: Discontinuity and Incompleteness in Mahler's 'Der Abschied'"

12:15–1:30PM | Lunch Break

1:30–3:30PM | Panel II: Musicianship, Genre, and Repertoire

Chair: Farzaneh Hemmasi (University of Toronto)

Evan Rapport (New School, NY), "Studying Jewish Musical Life through Repertoire: Ezro Malakov from Uzbekistan and Al Drootin from Volhynia"

Charles Hersch (Cleveland State University), "Swinging Hava Nagila: 'Jewish Jazz' and Jewish Identity"

Noam Lemish (University of Toronto), "The Multi-Local Musician: Amos Hoffman, Transcultural Jazz and the Polyphony of Style"

Anna Shternshis (University of Toronto), "Singing about Stalin in the 21st Century? The Dilemmas and Challenges of Performing Soviet Yiddish Music of World War II"

3:30–3:45PM | Coffee Break

3:45–5:15 PM | Panel III: Constructing Identities

Chair: Doris Bergen (University of Toronto)

Jardena Gertler-Jaffe (University of Toronto), "With Song and Hard Work: Shirei Eretz Yisrael and the Social Imaginary"

Lily E. Hirsch (California State University, Bakersfield), "Valley of the Dismissed: Jewish Identity, Gender, and Music in the Late Career of Anneliese Landau"

David Conway (University College, London), "Two Tribes: Jews, Roma, and Ethnic Identity in Music"

5:15 PM | Closing Remarks

Anna Shternshis (University of Toronto)

7:30 PM | Closing Concert

Location: Walter Hall, Faculty of Music, 80 Queen's Park

Amos Hoffman & Noam Lemish Quartet

Exciting jazz arrangements of songs from Yemenite, North African, and Persian Jewish communities featuring special guest, Israeli jazz guitarist/oudist Amos Hoffman.

Amos Hoffman, oud/guitar

Noam Lemish, piano

Justin Gray, bass

Derek Gray, drums

All events are free and open to the public. No registration required. Limited seating. Please write to jewishmusicconference@gmail.com with your comments and questions.