From the end of July to the beginning of August, every day for a week, I was playing music at the international Klezmer Seminar here in Jerusalem - paradise!
About forty musicians attended, mainly clarinetists, but also flautists, violinists, and saxophonists (including two other baritone sax players). Many of the participants were young music students, but there were three or four professional musicians, and a lot of good amateurs. People came from Germany, France, Switzerland, and even Brazil, as well as from here in Israel.
It was all acoustic, nothing electronic, nothing synthesized.
In addition to workshops and master classes from nine to four, every evening we gave a concert somewhere else in Jerusalem. The concerts were more than well attended, some by more than a thousand people.
Actually, I'm not a big fan of klezmer, and I wouldn't have signed up for the program if they hadn't offered a tango workshop and Balkan music as well. But now that I've played some klezmer stuff, I'm more disposed to like it.
The teachers were extraordinary. Every morning I attended a tango workshop taught by Raul Jaurena, a bandoneon player, composer, and arranger originally from Uruguay. He is the kind of musician that can never be trained in a conservatory, someone who grew up playing his music as part of a living tradition.
We worked very diligently to get his arrangements of tangos just right - and we didn't actually manage to learn them well enough to perform, because they were a bit too tough for the three clarinetists in the group. But the experience of rehearsing with a master like him was more important than the final result.
Equally inspiring was the German klezmer clarinetist, Helmut Eisel.
The entire group of forty musicians was led in performance by a brilliant quartet, Les Gitanes Blondes, a klezmer group based in Munich.
The communication among musicians playing together is uplifting. Being with other people who were willing to take a week out of their lives and incur the expense of participating was a fine thing.
About forty musicians attended, mainly clarinetists, but also flautists, violinists, and saxophonists (including two other baritone sax players). Many of the participants were young music students, but there were three or four professional musicians, and a lot of good amateurs. People came from Germany, France, Switzerland, and even Brazil, as well as from here in Israel.
It was all acoustic, nothing electronic, nothing synthesized.
In addition to workshops and master classes from nine to four, every evening we gave a concert somewhere else in Jerusalem. The concerts were more than well attended, some by more than a thousand people.
Actually, I'm not a big fan of klezmer, and I wouldn't have signed up for the program if they hadn't offered a tango workshop and Balkan music as well. But now that I've played some klezmer stuff, I'm more disposed to like it.
The teachers were extraordinary. Every morning I attended a tango workshop taught by Raul Jaurena, a bandoneon player, composer, and arranger originally from Uruguay. He is the kind of musician that can never be trained in a conservatory, someone who grew up playing his music as part of a living tradition.
We worked very diligently to get his arrangements of tangos just right - and we didn't actually manage to learn them well enough to perform, because they were a bit too tough for the three clarinetists in the group. But the experience of rehearsing with a master like him was more important than the final result.
Equally inspiring was the German klezmer clarinetist, Helmut Eisel.
The entire group of forty musicians was led in performance by a brilliant quartet, Les Gitanes Blondes, a klezmer group based in Munich.
The communication among musicians playing together is uplifting. Being with other people who were willing to take a week out of their lives and incur the expense of participating was a fine thing.
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