lya Shneyveys, with special guest Dan Blacksberg, present a live musical concert-lecture, Bringing old Jewish manuscripts to life: Discovering and recovering the nearly-lost Jewish music from Latvia.
In 1899 the young Latvian (non-Jewish) composition student Emilis Melngailis stumbled upon Yiddish folk singers in a small Baltic town. This chance encounter became the catalyst for his life-long obsession with ethnomusicology, without which these songs might have been lost forever. The story of Melngailis’ unique transcriptions of the songs and their recovery from obscurity is as fascinating as the songs themselves. In the 21st Century, young Latvian Jewish musicians including Ilya Shneyveys are working to bring these old songs back to life, through live performance, museum recordings, research articles, and an upcoming album with the Black Rooster Project. In his lecture Ilya will share details about his research and perform the music from the Melngailis Jewish Music Collection (as well as other klezmer repertoire) in a concert together with his long-time colleague and friend Dan Blacksberg.
Originally from Riga, Latvia, now based in Brooklyn, NY, Ilya Shneyveys (accordion) is a multi-instrumentalist, educator, composer, arranger, and producer of Yiddish music. With expertise spanning from traditional klezmer accordion to experimental and fusion projects, Ilya performs and teaches at Jewish festivals around the world, in venues ranging from your local synagogue catering hall to Carnegie Hall. Ilya is a founding member of Berlin’s Neukölln Klezmer Sessions and Shtetl Berlin, and a long-time faculty member of Yiddish Summer Weimar. His notable projects and collaborations include Forshpil, Alpen Klezmer, KaraYam, Caravan Orchestra, Dobranotch, Shekedina, Michael Winograd and The Klezmatics. Ilya has received multiple awards for his work.
Dan Blacksberg is a leading voice in Philadelphia's music community and a living master of klezmer trombone. Through performance, composition, and improvisation, he creates new territories to explore inside and across genres, forging new pathways between tradition and innovation. As a teacher and community music leader, he builds up all generations of musicians to become empowered and joyous rabble-rousers. As a teacher and culture bearer of klezmer trombone, Dan has been recognized as a Master Artist by the Canada Arts Council (2022). He has been on faculty at Temple University, Klezkanada, KlezKamp, and was an organizer of Yiddish New York. His students in trombone and improvisation can be found in leading roles across Philadelphia’s jazz, hip-hop, world music, and experimental music scenes.
Watch Ilya Shneyveys and Dan Blacksberg working on some backing tracks for their klezmer rhythm instruments class and the Black Rooster Project premiere at Juedische Woche Dresden.