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10 Yiddish Songs by Alexander Krein
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Sidney Krum Young Artists Concert Series
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. Admission: Free |
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.
About the Performers
As both musical and life partners, soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon and pianist Ryan McCullough bring an intimacy to their performances that speaks to their many years of collaboration. Praised as “breathtaking” by The Wall Street Journal, the husband-and-wife duo has performed throughout North America and Europe in such venues as New York’s Merkin Hall, Park Avenue Armory, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Di Menna Center; London’s Wigmore Hall; and Toronto’s Koerner Hall, in addition to a recent appearance on PBS’ Great Performances.
Committed to the performance of contemporary works alongside the art song canon, Fitz Gibbon and McCullough have worked closely with emerging and established composers alike. Among the body of works dedicated to them are compositions by Niccolo Athens, Dante De Silva, Andrew Hsu, Anna Lindemann, Pablo Ortiz, and Alan Louis Smith. Through the guidance and research of musicologist Mackenzie Pierce, Fitz Gibbon and McCullough have given the US premieres of numerous works by mid-20th century Polish composers, and have given modern premieres of important Yiddish-language works by Moses Milner and Joel Engel through the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research’s Sidney Krum Young Artists Concert Series. Their discography includes works by Sheila Silver, James Primosch, and John Harbison.
Equally at home in their individual careers, Ms. Fitz Gibbon has appeared as a soloist with such ensembles as the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; the Lucerne Academy Orchestra; Tafelmusik; the Albany, Eureka, Richmond, and Tulsa Symphonies, and the American Symphony Orchestra in her Carnegie Hall debut. Mr. McCullough has appeared as a concerto soloist with major orchestras, including the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic, and has performed with the Mark Morris Dance Group and contemporary ensemble eighth blackbird.