Submitted by eads on Mon, 10/08/2007 - 11:33pm.
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Yesterday I guest-conducted the Jewish Community Singers of Metro Chicago, a terrific volunteer civic group of about 70 singers called (in Hebrew) Kol Zimrah. I was brought in to lead KZ for a half-dozen weekly rehearsals and then the final concert, performed at the lovely Weinberg center at the corner of Lake Cook Road and I-294. The house was packed, with people overflowing to the patio outside, which fortunately had been supplied with speakers from the audio system that was carrying us on microphones.
The program lasted about an hour. Would you believe that there was a connection between one of the songs and my own grandmother? Oy! As it turned out, the program contained a "niggun" in Yiddish. A "niggun" [plural "niggunim"] is a wordless tune, which in this case sounded like "tschiribim-bam-bam," and so on. This particular niggun was arranged by Alice Parker, who was Robert Shaw's longtime collaborator, and a brilliant arranger in her own right.
However, more interesting to me was the composer of the original tune, Lazar Weiner. I learned from a friend that Lazar Weiner, who wore many hats in the NYC Jewish-music scene a hundred or so years ago, was the music director of the Freyheyt Gezang Vereyn (Freedom-Song Union), basically the choral-music arm of the Communist Party in New York City in the 1920s. Here is a picture of Weiner conducting.
And who sang with Lazar Weiner in the Freyheyt Gezang Vereyn? None other than my father's mother, Lillian Cohen, born Leah Krikun in Minsk, what is now Belarus. Now THAT is a small world!
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Last weekend, Chicago a cappella had a special performance, along rather unusual lines. A longtime patron was having a big birthday, and his wife hired us to go the Unitarian Church of Evanston for a surprise party and concert.
Sometimes it's hard to know if you're affecting someone, but this was not one of those times. The fortunate birthday boy, Craig (who was turning 50) sat up in the front row, enjoying all of it. One of the requests was the hilarious song by Paul Carey, "Mashed Potato/Love Poem" from the cycle "Play With Your Food!" We hadn't sung it in a few years, and it was wonderful to once again witness that song's effect on an audience.
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