Événement

HotPstromi: Michigan Festival of Sacred Music

Violinist, composer, filmmaker, writer, photographer and playwright Yale Strom is a pioneer among revivalists in conducting extensive field research in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans among the Jewish and Rom communities since the early 1981.

At first, his work focused primarily on the use and performance of klezmer music among these two groups. Gradually, his focus increased to examining all aspects of their culture, from post-World War II to the present. Over more than three decades and 75 such research expeditions, Strom has become one of the world's leading scholar-ethnographer-artists of klezmer music, history and culture.

His klezmer research was instrumental in helping form the repertoires of his klezmer band, Hot Pstromi. Since he began first band in 1981, Strom has been composing his own New Jewish music, which combines klezmer with Khasidic nigunim , Roma, jazz, classical, Balkan and Sephardic motifs.

These compositions range from songs to quartets to a symphony, which premiered with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. He composed original music for the Denver Center production of Tony Kushner's The Dybbuk.

He also composed all the New Jewish music for the National Public Radio series Fiddlers, Philosophers & Fools: Jewish Short Stories from the Old World to the New, hosted by Leonard Nimoy, as well as numerous film (A Life Apart) and dance (Malashock Dance Troupe) scores.

Strom is also one of the only top composers of Jewish music to carry on the tradition of writing original songs, with Yiddish lyrics, about humanitarian and social issues, as well as melodies for synagogue liturgy commissioned by synagogues like B'nai Jeshurun in New York City.

His many recordings run the gamut of traditional klezmer to "new" Jewish music and have appeared on Top Ten, Year's Best and critically acclaimed lists across North America. Strom has performed with many world renowned musicians including Mike Block, Andy Statman, Mark Dresser, Marty Ehrlich, Mark O'Connor, Alicia Svigals, Samir Chatterjee, Salman Ahmad, Damian Draghici, Adam del Monte, Lulo Reinhardt, Sunny Jain, Rachel Barton Pine and many other virtuosi.

Violinist Rachel Barton Pine sits in with the band.
Strom will have a photo exhibit on display at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum.