Free admission/$36 suggested donation to benefit Berkson and Lockwood's new endeavor, a record label devoted to the current scene of cantorial revival
Khazones is the Yiddish term for the work of a special kind of artist that once played an integral role in the Jewish community—the spiritual music virtuoso who represented the community through a style of vocal music that was deeply desired and legible to listeners as a mirror to the soul of the collective. Khazones on record was a pop music phenomenon in the early decades of the 20th century. The style of great cantorial voices captured an imagined folklore, preserving sounds of the rapidly disappearing Eastern European Jewish world. The creative genius and virtuosity of the stars of the genre were passionately desired by a mass audience and understood as an integral part of the experience of Jewish life. Drawing on the recorded music legacy of the “golden age” of cantorial music, a cohort of artists today are reanimating the sonic archive of star cantors of the phonograph era as the substance of a musical revival. Driven by the pursuit of formal achievement, radical recontextualization that addresses the needs of the current moment, and spiritual commitment, cantorial revivalists are drawn from a variety of identities at the fringes of American Jewish life, including Hasidic intellectuals, avant garde composers, leftist political activists, and secular Yiddishists.
Judith Berkson and Jeremiah Lockwood have joined forces to develop a new recorded music series that will present the best and brightest of contemporary artists delving into the archive of Jewish spiritual music. Through recording projects and multi-media presentations, Lockwood and Berkson will present the work of artists engaged in personal culture making projects. Drawing on decades of experience in music production, archival research, and composition, Berkson and Lockwood bring their unique and radical perspectives on the khazones tradition to the forefront in their promotion of new communities devoted to creativity, celebration of outsider voices, and heritage reclamation.
Jeremiah Lockwood is a scholar, singer, guitarist and composer. He holds a PhD from Stanford University in Education and Jewish Studies, where his dissertation fieldwork focused on young Chassidic cantors in Brooklyn and is currently a Fellow at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. His musical career began with years of playing guitar with blues musician Carolina Slim, and in synagogue singing with his grandfather Cantor Jacob Konigsberg. Lockwood is founder and frontman of The Sway Machinery, a group whose music the New Yorker has described as “unclassifiable and uplifting.” Lockwood has also recorded 14 albums, toured internationally, and been the recipient of numerous academic honors including the Salo Baron New Voices in Jewish Studies Award and the YIVO Kremen Memorial Fellowship in East European Arts, Music and Theater.
Judith Berkson is a mezzo-soprano, pianist and composer living in Los Angeles, California. She received a BM in voice from the New England Conservatory and received her MA in composition from Wesleyan University. She is currently pursuing a doctorate as a performer/composer at CalArts. Judith has collaborated with Kronos Quartet, Wet Ink, Yarn/Wire and City Opera and has presented work at Picasso Museum Malaga, Roulette, Le Poisson Rouge, Joe’s Pub, The Stone, Barbès and the 92 Street Y. She has received a Six Points Fellowship, a Jerome Foundation grant, Meet The Composer grant, New Music USA funding and support from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Her solo album Oylam (ECM Records) was described as “Standards and Schubert and liturgical music, swing and chilly silences, a beautiful Satie-like piece to open and close the record” by the New York Times. Her latest work, the chamber opera Partial Memories premiered at the NODO Festival in Ostrava, Czechia in June 2022. It was dedicated to forgotten female artists Janet Sobel and Mary Gartside and featured the Ostravská Banda.
Park nearby or on Hill or Olive and walk. At the door, you will either be let in or if you are late, find Der Nister on the call box to be let in. Take the elevator to the 14th floor, then go down the hall.