Yiddish Summer Weimar, Germany Announces 18th Consecutive Season

Guest Artists this Season Include KADYA and CARAVAN, Two Musical Ensembles Comprised of Both Jews and Arabs as Part of an Exchange Program Between Young Arab and Jewish Musicians From Israel, and Germany, as well as Fourteen Workshops in Yiddish Language, Plus Lecture Series, and Concerts

The city of Weimar was recognized as a hotbed of literature, music and the visual arts and home to some of the great names in these genres prior to the Nazi take over in 1933. Today this vibrant city once again pulsates with creative energy and artistic innovation. Weimar is home to the Festival of Yiddish Culture, known as Yiddish Summer Weimar. For nearly two decades this ground breaking festival with its own team of experts, has introduced and reintroduced thousands of participants and visitors to the artistic and anthropological, scientific and social dimensions of Yiddish culture through imaginative exploration of the past, and a trenchant engagement with the present in order to further the development and celebrate Yiddish as a language, life-style and art form in the 21st Century and beyond.

Israel today is a nation of numerous Diaspora's each with it's own culture and heritage. Moroccan Jews, Iraqi Jews, Ethiopian Jews and several other national and ethnic communities and traditions operate as minorities within the skein of contemporary Israeli society. The goal of this year's Yiddish Summer Weimar Festival is to create a space in which open dialogue investigates the ways in which these cultures interact. Yiddish Summer explores both shared heritages and fundamental differences, which exist as creative potential, rather than sources of fear and mistrust,

This year, as part of an innovative youth exchange program, Yiddish Summer Weimar 2017, will present KADYA and CARAVAN: KADYA, the Arab -Jewish choir - Voices of Peace - from Jaffa, will collaborate with Weimar's Schola Cantorum in Alan Bern's musical arrangement of Poems for Children by Polish Jewish author Kadya Molodowsky. The newly formed musically accomplished Arab-Jewish CARAVAN ORCHESTRA from Haifa, will join forces with European instrumentalists whose programs will offer works of the European, Arabic and Jewish musical styles and genres.

As always, Yiddish Weimar 2017 is a place for the further development and exploration of Yiddish culture. This year's Festival offers fourteen workshops including Yiddish language on 3 different levels from beginners up to advanced and story-telling, lecture series, as well as ensemble concerts with artists such as Gulaza, Lenka Lichtenberg & Yair Dalal, the Chassidic Band The Heart and the Wellspring as well as Gershon Leizerson & The Yiddish Blues Drifters.

Highly regarded as one of the most extensive and traditional Festivals dedicated to the exploration and teaching of Yiddish culture in an open multinational dialogue, since its founding in 1999, Yiddish Summer Weimar is recognized as an integral part of Weimar Summer in Germany, and has hosted thousands of guests from around the world: 10,000 in 2016. A plethora of world class ensembles from the Jewish music scene have participated in the Festival, most importantly the Semer Ensemble, Voices of Ashkenaz and The Other Europeans who came together in Weimar through Yiddish Summer, and play a vital role in the very existence of Yiddish Summer Weimar.

 

http://yiddishsummer.eu/

 

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