The Yiddish Folksong: A Survey

Yiddish Civilization Lecture Series See all lectures » Admission: Free Watch the video

Mark Slobin | Delivered in English.

This talk will situate the “Yiddish folksong” in the context of the general European folksong world as well as the world of the performed expressive culture of ‘Yiddishland’, from prayer through popular song. The lecture will then consider the stability of the song tradition, despite the widespread mobility, dislocation, and destruction of the singers and their communities, down to today’s resurgence of new Yiddish singer-songwriters.

About the Speaker

Mark Slobin is the Winslow-Kaplan Professor of Music Emeritus at Wesleyan University and the author or editor of many books, on Afghanistan and Central Asia, eastern European Jewish music, film music, and ethnomusicology theory, two of which have received the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award: Fiddler on the Move: Exploring the Klezmer World and Tenement Songs: Popular Music of the Jewish Immigrants. His current project is on the musical life of Detroit, 1940s-60s. He has been President of the Society for Ethnomusicology and the Society for Asian Music.