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old news (almost like a blog...) |
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| June
2008 NEWS |
| Hi, I'm back in Italy
after a
US tour and a week in the Nederlands for the first
Amsterdam International Jewish Music
Festival.
The US tour I've described in detail in the
Italian pages of this site - there's a
weblog I posted, only
in Italian because - well, I thought my ramblings aout my US experiences
would be more interesting to an Italian reader!
The Amsterdam IJMF was actually a competition,
for which 24 bands had been chosen among a whole lot of applicants from all
over the world (there were peoplle coming from Russia, Israel, Argentina,
the US, and obviously all over Europe). I was there with two groups, which I
guess is something to be proud of: both with the
Homeless L.I.G.H.T. Orchestra
and Ensemble Lucidarium . |
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Well,
ok, being there with two bands means I had double the chances of winning -
but I didn't, so that's something to be a bit LESS proud of. Anyway, it was
very fun. I posted a few
photos of the two
bands' performances in the photo section.
As you
might have heard, the Italian political scene has undergone a major upheaval
in the past few months, and the right is in power once again. Now, this does
NOT make me particularly happy, but I will not spend a lot of words about
this here: just this, as Jews I feel it's particularly uncomfortable now to
be wooed (sincerely?) by a seemingly pro-israel right (allied with the
post-fascists, and even with some NEO-fascist groups), and often eyed with
distrust by a blindly anti-Israel left. |
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Two
things I'm involved with in this respect are:
www.nazirock.it
This
is a website devoted to a courageous documentary called NAZIROCK, which
explores the neo-nazi movement in Italy. There's some of my music used for
the film, and I'm very proud of it.
Away from Freedonia
a
monologue I'm doing right now about Israel and the left, and Israel as seen
from an Italian, and in particular Jewish Italian, viewpoint. I'll be
performing it a few times in the next weeks (check out the dates below
here): if you've got friends in Italy that you can think would be
interested, do a little PR for me!
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January
2008 NEWS |
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Hello! and a very happy 2008
to all. As
usual, take a look at the Italian pages (follow the link above) for the
complete news of what's going on around here.
I've posted on the column
on the left a couple of new pages: one is
called "INVISIBLE MUSIC", and it's about a series of lectures I have now
been giving in several american universities, both in the US and here in
Italy; the second one is about a new show of mine, Away from Freedonia,
dealing with Israel, but from a very particular point of view...
January 27th is
Memory Day, dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Shoah: so this
month I have a few concerts for that occasion. Among them, I'm playing
and speaking - it's the second time, actually - at the Florence section of
Syracuse University. You can check all the dates below, but here I want to
focus on , April - May 2008. Here's the program: |
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April 24th – 27th: Stay in
Seattle, WA
April 25th, possible musical
participation in Sabbath services
April 26th, lecture, concert, Town
Hall: “La Istoria de Purim”
April 27th, Children’s Concert, Town
Hall.
Evening of April 27th: transfer by
plane to San Diego, CA
April 27th – 29th: Stay in
San Diego, CA
April 28th: concert, Beth El
Synagogue: “La Istoria de Purim”
Social Hall of Congregation Beth El
8660 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92037 |
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Morning of April 29th: transfer by
plane to Tucson, AZ
April 29th- May 1st: Stay
in Tucson, AZ
April 29th: concert at Tucson Jewish
Community Center, “La Istoria de Purim”
sponsored by Arizona Center for Judaic studies
April 30th: University of Arizona,
Master Class sponsored by music department
May 1st – May 3rd transfer
by car or by plane to Houston, TX
May 3rd: arrival, Houston, TX
May 3rd – 5th: Stay in
Houston, TX
May 4th: concert:
“La Istoria de Purim” at 4:00 pm,
at the First Unitarian
Universalist Church
May 5th: morning: high school outreach
I'm still looking for dates to
fill in empty spaces, or to extend the stay: we're available for concerts
(check the program on the "Istoria
de Purim" page ) but also far talks about the Italian Jewish world, in
particular (but not only) music. And also for different concerts, of a more
contemporary style: like last year, I can direct an "ItalyJazzKlez" concert
in which we fuse many different things, from Italian synagogue song to
klezmer, from classical sounds to jazz, for a
quite memorable mix. So, if you have any contacts to suggest, feel free to
email me! |
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September 2007 NEWS |
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Well first of all a good new Jewish year,
Shana Tova, and many many wishes for a very sweet 5768!!
It's been a long summer, and I've been
culpably away from my computer too long to keep these pages adjourned on the
many things that have happened. The first concerts of the Orchestra Musicale
Aretina have been terrific, if somewhat balagan-ish... The mixture of
musicians from Mexico, Albania, Lebanon, Bangladesh, Palestine, Morocco and
Italy, and yet some places more, has worked out - I believe the audience has
always enjoyed it at least as much as we did! On the second concert I was
almost able to add a US touch it all, by bringing alkong Brian Bender, a
terrific trombone and piano pplayer from Massachussets who... just happened
to pass by! Unfortunately it rained, so Brian's appearance in a public show
in Tuscany is postponed... but not much, I hope |
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Oh, and I've become a rather important
person, my friends, and now hold the enviable position of "Professor of
History of Jewish Music" at the Jewish Studies University in Rome; lessons
start next October... this means, I guess, I have to study... |
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Not to take myself too much
seriously, I decided to expand my natural clownerie, and bought a small
battery-operated amplifier which I can carry on a backpack: so attired I've
been playing with the Homeless Light Orchesta, now aptly renamed Homeless
Marching Band, through the streets of Pisa on September 2nd, and will be
doing the same in Sassuolo next week. If you're reading this English page, I
guess you're not likely to be around... well, you never know, if you are in
Sassuolo on the night of September 15th, listen out for a Klezmer marching
band... it's us... |
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June 2007 NEWS |
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Next Friday, June 8, David
Grossman will be here in Italy (in Forlì, to be precise). I've been asked to
do a bit of "musical introduction" to his talk, and I've been debating with
myself a lot on what to play. At first I thought I might play some Israeli
music, in order to "introduce" an Israeli writer to the Italian audience...
but then horrific images of Umberto Eco in Denver being introduced by a jazz
band playing "O Sole Mio" started forming themselves in my mind, and I opted
to play a few Italian Jewish tunes - which will be a surprise to Grossman
himself, I'm sure. Then maybe, at the end, I'll go for Shir Lashalom, the
peacenik classic - a song made more poignant still by the fact that it was
sung by Itzhak Rabin a few minutes before being shot to death. You'll find a
recording from that fateful night
here. |
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On my Italian
pages I describe and promote a workshop on Jewish music and culture I'll
be hosting in Bertinoro, a nice spot in the hills of Romagna. But tese past
weeks I've been working on another workshop, promoted by the city of Arezzo,
in Tuscany.
Recent surge of immigration has encouraged Italian
institutions to find new ways of promoting integration and multiculturality:
one area that is starting to be investigated in many different regions
throughout Italy is music. I've been asked to organize a workshop in Arezzo
together with Jamal Ouassini, a violinist form Tanger who's been living in
northern Italy for many years now and is an expert on many different forms
of Arab music: the students were recruited among the residents of the city,
but with a lot of emphasis on pulling aboard recent immigrants and young
people of diverse cultural background.
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It's been a fun
experience - and it will culminate in the forming of a sort of "multi-cultural
Orchestra" where Jamal and me are supposed to find ways of letting all the
different possible contributions show.
Fun, as I said - but also challenging...
just to give you an
example: we have a very interesting group of musicians from Bangladesh.
They play instruments we've never saw, tuned in ways we don't fully
understand. And... we have no language in common.
We're spending hours trying to find ways of letting - say - a rock bass
player from Arezzo and a classically trained violin player from Albania play
with them.
Teaches you something on dialogue,
diversity... and funny sounding chords... |
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April 2007 NEWS |
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Happy Passover to you all - I've been
matzoing my way back into shape after almost a month of pancake gobbling in
the US. If you're curious about how the tour worked out, well, you can
happily peruse a very detailed photodiary which is, alas, in Italian. It's
here:
US TOUR PHOTODIARY
As far as
English is concerned, I'll post below a terrific review by Chloe Veltman (www.chloeveltman.com)
that appeared in the San Francisco Classical Voice (www.sfcv.org)
Immediately after the US tour, I've been
in Perpignan, on the border between France and Spain, for a performance at
the Festival Du Musique Sacree. It's been a terrific experience, in
particaular because for the first time I attempted a program strictly
devoted to Jewish Italian Synagogue song, and thanks to the prowess of my
fellow musicians (a few from Lucidarium and a few old time colleagues) it
all turned out extremely well.
What can I say? I feel very
international, these days... |
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The Jewish Roots of
Renaissance Italy
By Chloe Veltman
The ideal of different cultures blending together into
a unified whole is one that this country holds dear. The metaphor of the
melting pot means a lot to Jews in particular. The term was coined by
Anglo-Jewish author Israel Zangwill in 1908, when he described America as
“the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and
re-forming!” Meanwhile, the poem engraved on a plaque at the base of the
Statue of Liberty, which celebrates America’s once open-armed policy toward
immigrants, was written by the Jewish poet and activist Emma Lazarus.
Given American Jews’ longstanding empathy with multiculturalism, it’s not
surprising that the audience at Berkeley’s Jewish Music Festival greeted
Ensemble Lucidarium’s performance at First Congregational Church on Thursday
evening with cheers and stamping feet. Its program of Jewish music from
Renaissance Italy was nothing if not an embodiment, in musical form, of the
melting pot idea.
The Milan-based Ensemble Lucidarium consists of seven Renaissance music
experts who sing and play a range of period instruments, from the
colascione (a type of long-necked lute) and viola da mano (an
ancestor of the acoustic guitar) to the hammer dulcimer and pipe and tabor
(a fife and drum combination). The concert, titled “L’Istoria de Purim,”
featured several 16th-century Italian songs celebrating the festival of
Purim. But the program was more an exploration of the eclectic cultural
influences that fed into Italian Jewish life during the period than it was a
presentation of music relating specifically to Purim.
And what a mix it was. Boasting myriad musical styles from liturgical
melodies used in synagogues to courtly dances, Lucidarium’s careening
cocktail of stories and songs, sung in Italian, Hebrew, Catalan, and
proto-Yiddish, echoed the state of 16th-century Jewish-Italian life. Italy
was already home to the oldest Jewish community in Europe, whose roots dated
back to Roman times, when persecuted Jews from other European countries,
including Portugal, Spain, and Germany, arrived on the scene. The new
transplants not only soaked up the local customs, they also transmitted
their own, extremely varied Sephardic, Ashkenazi, and other traditions.
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Morris Dance and Chivalric Romance
Lucidarium reflected this historical backdrop through a program that was
as playful in spirit as the festival of Purim. The madrigal-like ambience of
Giovanni Lorenzo Baldano’s Moresca (sull’ Aria d’ottava) (Morris
dance, on an aria in octave rhyme), translated into Hebrew from a
16th-century Italian poem, was sung in a skipping, rhythmic manner by
vocalists Enrico Fink, Gloria Moretti, and Viva Biancaluna Biffi. That
contrasted warmly with the buffoonery of Fink’s interpretation of
Bofo-Bukh (Bovo Book) an epic poem told in old Yiddish to traditional
Venetian melodies.
The juxtaposing of the ottava rima-infused Moresca and
Bofo-Bukh (whose roots can be traced back to Buovo d'Antona, a
popular Italian chivalric romance in ottava rima, which in turn came from an
Anglo-Norman original, Bevis of Hampton) was a particularly inspired
piece of programming. Ottava rima and the Anglo-Italian connection link the
two pieces across meter and culture. Also, the Moresca, originally a
fanciful reenactment of a battle, connects, obliquely, with the Purim story
and also has a mock-epic genesis that contrasts with Bovo.
Fink’s role in Lucidarium’s concert was particularly powerful. With his
bold tenor (comically usurped by a pungent falsetto for one section of
Bofo-Bukh) and expressive physicality, he ricocheted between the roles
of a zealous religious leader, as he somberly opened the concert with a
Hebrew Shabbat prayer, and a Commedia dell’arte clown.
Ancient and Modern
One of the most delightful aspects of the concert (besides the largely
Jewish audience’s raucous jeering and foot-stamping response, in accordance
with tradition, to the mention of the Purim story’s arch-villain, Haman) was
connecting Lucidarium’s investigation of cultural assimilation in
16th-century Italy with other musical traditions. Strains of Carl Orff’s
Carmina Burana emerged out of the ensemble’s fiery, feisty rendition of
Dos Lid fun der Sreyfe in Venedig (Song of the Fire in Venice) — a
half-spoken, half-played narrative in old Yiddish brought to life by Fink
and musicians playing viola da mano, recorders, dulcian (a bassoonlike bass
shawm), and percussion. Similarly, the blend of Moretti’s salty
mezzo-soprano voice with Biffi’s sweet soprano in the anonymous song
Fuggi, Fuggi, Fuggi (Il Ballo de Mantova) (Fly, fly, fly — the dance of
Mantua) brought the connection between that melody and the Israeli national
anthem (Hatikvah) sharply into focus.
The madcap quality of the concert wasn’t well served by the venue. It’s
unfortunate, given the importance of syncopation, ornamentation, and
percussion in Lucidarium’s repertoire, that First Congregational Church
possesses such sound-swallowing acoustics. The high-energy parts of the
program suffered the most. Instead of hearing the birdlike brilliance of the
three-holed pipe and the whip-crack beating of the tabor, we frequently got
a muffled stew of sound, like a formless mass of food churning around inside
a cavernous stomach. It was a melting pot, all right, but not quite the kind
that Lucidarium had in mind.
Many people prefer to think of cultural assimilation in the U.S. as more
a salad bowl than a melting pot. Rather than fusing together into an
indistinct whole, the ingredients in a salad create unity while retaining
their individual shape and identity. I’m not sure which of the two images,
if either, best sums up Jewish life in Renaissance Italy. But I do wish the
sonic ingredients in “L’Istoria de Purim” had been tossed rather than puréed.
(Chloe Veltman is the chief theater critic for S.F. Weekly, and
has contributed articles about theater, music, and other art forms to such
publications as The Guardian, The Economist, The Financial Times, The Los
Angeles Times, and The Believer. She also plays oboe and sings
contralto with a number of Bay Area-based music ensembles, including Redwood
Winds and San Francisco Renaissance Voices.)
©2007 Chloe Veltman, all rights reserved
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FEBRUARY 2007 NEWS
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********
***** follow Enrico's US tour on:
blog.myspace.com/enricofink
!!! *****
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This month, at long last, the English
version of this site is online.
I
do not think this will be a simple translation of the Italian website: oh,
sure, the relevant info we'll always be here and there - but I'll probably
be following my instinct and my split personality, and diverge
somewhat in the two versions. So if you really have nothing better to do,
take a look at both languages. For example, all last year's posts are
available only on the Italian page.
Another webapage you might like to check
out is my brand new myspace page:
http://www.myspace.com/enricofink
For those who are not familiar with it,
myspace is a very large network of dedicated internet people; it started off
as a simple place to meet and chat, I guess, but now - for example - the
music section has grown very professional and interesting, a meeting place
for musicians of all genres. On my myspace page you'll find a player with 4
songs you can listen online to, and cool other things: among which a blog,
which is for now pretty lame, but where in March I'll be recording for
posterity every day of my upcoming...
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U.S.
TOUR.
Yes, it finally worked out, and on March
the 2nd I'll be flying to New York. The tour is basically a "La
Istoria de Purim" tour with Lucidarium, starting off in NYC at the YIVO
center (courtesy of the Primo Levi foundation), then making our way to
Berkeley for the San Francisco Jewish festival: in between we'll be visiting
two major universities, U. of Wisconsin at Madison and U. of Maryland at
College Park, where we'l be playing and giving lectures on Italian Jewish
music, plus a few other stops (near Chicago, at Fermilab auditorium and at
Beth Shalom synagogue; in Philadelphia; at Univ. of California at Santa Cruz
for a lecture). But there will be also time for a few "il
ritorno alla fede" shows - in a special version, with old-timers
Alessandro Francolini and Stefano Bartolini who'll be flying in to play with
me and a few lucidari. We'll be performing this special concert in New York
and Maryland. The usual link on the left gives you details for the single
concerts.
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So, if you're new to this site,
please check out all the wonderful little things and treats we've been
putting into it; otherwise... what's new? Oh yes, in the "images"
section there's a new set of photographs of myself with the Homeless
L.I.G.H.T. Orchestra, shot by long time friend Fernando Maraghini.
But most of all, please send me feedback
about this site, the myspace page, and all you can think of!
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the Italian version of
the site. |
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