Name: Klezmer Music Ensemble: Jewish Orchestras
Start: 2024-04-25T19:30:00
Location: Maltz Performing Arts Center

Steven Greenman

Case Western Reserve University Department of Music

The mass influx of Eastern European Jewish immigrants to America from 1880-1920 created a new market for the burgeoning US recording industry. Catered specifically to the newly arrived immigrants, recordings of traditional Yiddish instrumental and vocal music satiated the nostalgia of the old world and reaffirmed cultural traditions. Jewish bandleaders organized Jewish Orchestras, that resembled the Jewish kapelyes (ensembles) that performed for weddings and Jewish cultural events in Eastern Europe, to record music from der alter heym (the old country). The Jewish Orchestras consisted of working American Jewish musicians, recent immigrants, and virtuoso soloists. The recording of traditional Jewish instrumental music was not strictly an American phenomenon. Recording companies in Eastern Europe (Syrena Rekord Company) had also featured Jewish orchestras and smaller Jewish folk and chamber ensembles as early as the advent of recorded music. A great majority of these European and American recordings, originally produced on 78 rpm shellac and vinyl records have survived to this day and have been reissued and digitized for klezmer music collections and anthologies.