“Guest artist for the night was the marvelous pianist, Byron Schenkman…. his virtuosity, mercurial range and power were all showcased beautifully throughout the evening”

– Carolyn Gregory, Stylus Magazine, Boston

Notes on the Program

By Byron Schenkman

Many of the students at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in the early 20th century were Jewish musicians who grew up confined to the Pale of Settlement, often from families of cantors or klezmorim (traditional Jewish instrumental musicians). Music was one of the few professions available to Jews who wanted to assimilate into mainstream European culture. Under the influence of Joel Engel, widely known as the father of modern Jewish music, a group of those musicians gathered to form a Society for Jewish Folk Music and to establish a Jewish repertory analogous to the other nationalist movements in European classical music at that time.

Joel Engel collected Jewish folk music and adapted it into standard European music notation. Our program begins with one of the pieces he performed at a 1900 event in Moscow that would become known as the first-ever concert of Jewish music. It should be noted that klezmorim were not concert performers; rather they provided music for weddings and other festive occasions. Engel and his followers were distinguished “classical” musicians who incorporated elements of klezmer music into their work. In our own time, violinist Steven Greenman carries that work into the 21st century with new compositions based on klezmer tradition.