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in a dark blue night
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Album Launch Concert & Party
Co-sponsored by the American Society for Jewish Music and the Tenement Museum Admission: Free |
Celebrate the release of in a dark blue night, the follow-up to Alex Weiser’s Pulitzer Prize nominated debut album and all the days were purple.
A love letter to New York City, in a dark blue night features acclaimed singer Annie Rosen with a seven-piece chamber ensemble and comprises two song cycles that explore Jewish immigrant New York City. The first cycle, in a dark blue night, features five settings of Yiddish poetry written by newly arrived immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Coney Island Days follows and sets to music words from an oral history interview with Weiser’s grandmother about childhood in the bilingual immigrant world of Coney Island in the 1930s and ‘40s.
Join YIVO to celebrate the release of this album with performances, discussion, and a post-concert reception. Concert performances will feature Annie Rosen with pianist Jason Wirth, clarinetist Yoonah Kim, violinist Lun Li, and bassist Patrick Swoboda. The album, which will be released by Cantaloupe Music on Friday, March 29, 2024, will be available for pre-release purchase and signing after the concert.
The Sidney Krum Young Artists Concert Series is made possible by a generous gift from the Estate of Sidney Krum.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.
VIRTUAL TENEMENT CONCERT | ON YOUTUBE LIVE
New York in Yiddish Song: in a dark blue night
Tuesday, March 26, 2024 | 6:30pm ET
View the Program for March 26.
This concert featured introduction and historical commentary by Alex Weiser in conversation with Tenement Museum President Annie Polland, and musical performances by singer Annie Rosen and pianist Jason Wirth. Hosted by the Tenement Museum in partnership with YIVO.
About the Participants
Broad gestures and rich textures are hallmarks of the “compelling” (The New York Times), “deliciously wistful” (San Francisco Classical Voice), music of composer Alex Weiser. Born and raised in New York City, Weiser creates acutely cosmopolitan music combining a deeply felt historical perspective with a vibrant forward-looking creativity hailed as “personal, expressive, and bold” (I Care If You Listen).
Weiser’s debut album and all the days were purple, was named a 2020 Pulitzer Prize Finalist and cited as “a meditative and deeply spiritual work whose unexpected musical language is arresting and directly emotional.” Released by Cantaloupe Music in April 2019, the album includes songs in Yiddish and English.
Active as an opera composer, Weiser is currently working on two operas. Tevye’s Daughters, written with librettist Stephanie Fleischmann, is a commission from American Lyric Theater. Based on Sholem Aleichem’s iconic Yiddish stories, it explores the tragic death of Tevye’s lesser-known daughter, Shprintse and traces the lasting impact of Shprintse’s fate on her sisters after immigration to New York. The Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language with librettist Ben Kaplan is set in 1950s post-war New York and follows linguist Yudel Mark as he sets out to write the world’s first fully comprehensive Yiddish dictionary — an effort of linguistic preservation, and a memorial to the dead.
An advocate for contemporary classical music, Weiser co-founded Kettle Corn New Music, an “ever-enjoyable” concert series (The New York Times), and was a director of the MATA Festival, “the city’s leading showcase for vital new music by emerging composers” (The New Yorker). Weiser is now the Director of Public Programs at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research where he curates programs and has commissioned over fifteen works from some of today’s leading composers. Visit www.AlexWeiser.com for more information.