10 Yiddish Songs by Alexander Krein
Hosted By: YIVO
Join us for a performance of Alexander Krein’s Ten Yiddish Songs Op. 49 (~1937). Performed by singer Lucy Fitz Gibbon with pianist Ryan MacEvoy McCullough, these 10 songs reimagine Yiddish folksong texts and melodies in rich and imaginative arrangements for piano and voice.
Born in 1883, Krein was raised in a family of musicians and performed cello with his father’s Klezmer band. After studying at the Moscow Conservatory where Krein enrolled at age 13, he became an active member of the Moscow branch of the Society for Jewish Folkmusic. Krein wrote music that was more harmonically adventurous than many of the other composers, taking influence from modernist composers such as Alexander Scriabin. While many of the composers affiliated with the Society for Jewish Folkmusic emigrated to Palestine or the United States, Krein remained in the Soviet Union for the rest of his life. Krein was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the Soviet Union, and was particularly active writing music for theatrical performances including for Moscow’s Hebrew-language Habimah Theater as well as for Yiddish state theaters in Moscow, Kiev, and Minsk.
The event listed here is hosted by a third party. My Jewish Learning/70 Faces Media is not responsible for its content or for errors in the listing.
