On Saturday, Sept. 10, Crowell Concert Hall was filled with students eager to listen, watch and even dance to a performance of FleytMuzik, a Klezmer music ensemble. The group visited campus to lead master classes for Wesleyan flutists during the day and give a public performance in the evening. The ensemble, founded by former Wesleyan professor Adrianne Greenbaum, has broken Klezmer conventions by omitting the traditional clarinet from her arrangements and transcribing her favorite melodies for the flute instead.
Greenbaum started the performance by walking down the steps to the stage, playing her flute, and continued to encourage active audience participation throughout the concert. Greenbaum frequently spoke to the audience, urging them to clap and dance along to the music. A few brave students danced in front of their seats, eventually going on stage to form a circle. They were soon joined by Greenbaum herself, who joyously interpreted the music.
The concert was peppered with anecdotes from Greenbaum’s travels, of people she met, and Klezmer songs she had learned. She explained the Klezmer tradition as coming from songs played at traditional Jewish weddings in Eastern Europe, and introduced songs in their original context as part of the wedding ceremony and reception. These stories put the songs the group performed into a humorous and more personal context for the audience, which may not have been very familiar with Klezmer tradition.
“Not only was the music good enough to send the audience dancing in every available nook of Crowell, but we were also being given a living history lesson,” said Jesse Nasta ’07. “Those instruments so central to the heritage of Jewish music- the flute and the hammered dulcimer- have rarely been played together in nearly a century. The sounds that filled Crowell were vibrant and immediate while also evoking the spirits of a world of Jewish music and community lost to emigration and the Holocaust.”
Those in the audience with a greater understanding of Klezmer music, like Hannah Goodwin-Brown ’07, enjoyed the concert for its musical context as well.
“I think the neo-Klezmer movement is very interesting because it is all about fiddling around with musical contexts,” Goodwin-Brown said. “It is pretty brave to take songs that were originally meant to be played at Jewish weddings, screw around with the way they are arranged, and then present them onstage to a bunch of people who are probably not familiar with the intricacies of the Klezmer tradition.”
However, according to Mark Slobin, professor of music, who brought the group to campus and organized the concert, an advanced understanding of musical theory or Klezmer history was not necessary to enjoy the concert.
The rest of the band added to the musical originality of the concert.
“The band had great energy, particularly Cookie [Segelstein], who really knew how to rip on the violin,” Goodwin-Brown said. “She had a very particular tonality that was markedly different from that of a classical violinist. Very warm, very assertive. I enjoyed her.”
Slobin’s and others’ encouragement may have even helped spread a love of Klezmer music among students.
“My FYI class [on] folk music studies went and their write-ups were very enthusiastic,” said Slobin. “The musicians were very pleased with the audience response, particularly the students, and said that student encouragement means a lot to them. So I would say it was very successful as a Wesleyan showing all around.”
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