The Language of the Soul: A Hands-On Exploration of Jewish Music in Life, Ritual, and Migration

What makes a song “Jewish”? Over the past 2,000+ years of diaspora, Jewish communities have adapted a wide variety of musical cultures from throughout the world into a synthesis of “Jewish music” representing many distinct genres, eras, and artistic and spiritual expressions. Join us as we explore this musical diversity in an ensemble setting, studying and performing a range of secular, folk, and religious Jewish music such as klezmer (Eastern European Jewish instrumental and semi-improvised music), chazzanut (cantorial singing), piyyut (liturgical poetry), Yiddish musical theater and folk songs, Ladino ballads of the Sephardic (Spanish) Jews, the system of maqam (Middle Eastern music) and traditional Arabic-influenced Jewish music, Hasidic nigunim (mystical worldless melodies), Mizrahi (Jews of the Middle Eastern) pop music, as well as present-day musicians innovating and expanding the contours of what Jewish music can be in the 21st century. Along the way, we’ll learn about the mystical power of music and its deep connection to Jewish history, worldview, and the Jewish way of life. Performance, both public and private, will be a crucial component of this class and will serve to allow students to experience the transformative power of music as a window to past migrations, as a meditative practice, and as oral and aural culture. Students do not need to be Jewish or have any background in Judaism to participate, but as this is a music performance ensemble, preference will be given to students with an instrumental and/or vocal music background.