The Lost Klezmer Music of Ukraine: A Special SWF Gathering and Concert

Important Notice: We are closing registration at 2pm on 1/19/24 as Shabbat approaches. We are very fully subscribed.  We regret to have to turn away anyone. 

Please read the instructions you receive after you register about the hosts' address, parking, and potluck signup (if you are coming to the third Shabbat meal. If you need information, please call the SWF Coordinator, Shera Farkas at 518 339-2613.

Shabbat with Friends Team 

A Special Shabbat with Friends Musical Gathering with Guest, Christina Crowder of the Klezmer Institute along with beloved local musicians, Jordan Wax and Clara Byom on Saturday, January 20, 2024 in Santa Fe. Christina, Jordan, and Clara, will share songs from the Kiselgof-Makonovetsky Digital Manuscript Project (KMDMP) whose volunteers are digitizing written music manuscripts from both “important” and everyday klezmer musicians from late nineteenth-early twentieth century of Ukraine and Belarus.

Join us for this unique opportunity to listen to and sing melodies from the large Jewish communities of pre-Holocaust Europe. This gathering is sponsored by Shabbat with Friends NM and the Klezmer Institute. It will be hosted by Bette Evans and Michael Makoid in Santa Fe. Here is the schedule of this special program.

The program is divided into two parts as per the schedule below with a Shabbat third meal dinner and Havdallah in between.  

3:00-3:30pm Doors Open.

3:30-5:00pm Telegrams of the Future: Nign Wrokshop with Christina Crowder.

5:15-6:30pm Late Afternoon Third Shabbat meal potluck dinner and Havdallah

7:00-8:30pm Concert . Reimagining the Lost Klezmer Music of Ukraine with Christine Crowder, Jordan Wax, and Clara Byom.  

Pre-Registration is required. Choose one of the options (tickets)  below. 

1. Complete Program: Nign Workshop, Shabbat Potlu ck Dinner/Havdallah, Concert.  $30 Suggested Donation. After registration you will receive the potluck signup.  

2. Shabbat Potluck Dinner/Havdallah and Concert. $30 Suggested Donation. After registration you will receive the potluck signup.  

3. Concert Only:  $30 Suggested Donation. 

4. Nign Workshop and Shabbat Potluck Dinner.  Complimentary. After registration you will receive a potluck signup. 

5. Nign Workshop only.  Complimentary. 

After you register you will receive by Tuesday, 1/16 the address of our hosts, parking information, and a signup link to the Shabbat Third Meal (Se'udah Shlishit) Potluck. If you have questions about this Shabbat with Friends program, please contact Shera Farkas at sheraf@shabbatwithfriends.org or our Convener, Rabbi Dov Gartenberg at dov@shabbatwithfriends.org of 505 582-9577.  Please note that there is room for 50 people at this gathering. Please register early to guarantee your place.  

About the program

Concert:  7-7:30pm  Reimagining the Lost Klezmer Music of Ukraine with Christina Crowder, Jordan Wax and Clara Byom.  

A chance encounter in Tokyo a few years ago led to the sharing of a unique corpus of musical manuscripts  from the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine previously unavailable to klezmer musicians and scholars. This concert will showcase some of the instrumental and vocal music in the corpus. We’ll explore S. An-ski’s radical vision that the folklore of the Jewish people is an oral Torah as important as the Talmud of the sages. This vision inspired the ethnographic expeditions of 1912-1914, and are the backdrop for An-ski’s most famous work, The Dybbuk. An-ski hoped that the Jewish people would become Zamlers (collectors) who would continue to engage with Ashkenazic folklore as a living, breathing legacy. We invite you to join our “community expedition” into this extraordinary discovery!  

Nign Workshop 

Telegrams to the Future: Niggunim of Dvekut & Joy from Ukrainian Klezmorim 

A nign is a wordless melody invested with spiritual intention—elevated by those who sing them. The melodies presented in this workshop were collected from klezmorim and bal tfile (prayer leaders) in early twentieth century Ukraine and Belarus during the An-sky ethnographic expeditions between 1912-14. We will learn some of these melodies together, breathing new life into these precious telegrams to the future and transforming them with our own sense of shared kavanah and connection.    

Christina Crowder

Christina has been performing and researching Jewish music for thirty years, beginning in Budapest, Hungary in 1993 as a founding member of Di Naye Kapelye, and continuing with a Fulbright grant to Romania to document Jewish music in 1999.  She is the Executive Director of the Klezmer Institute in New York City which was awarded three NEH Grants for Institute projects (2021-2025).