A new CD titled Jewish Music of the Dance includes not one hora: orchestral music for the concert hall is the program on this, one of three new releases we’ve recently received in the final installment of the extravagant recording project known as the Milken Archive of American Jewish MusicContinue Reading
Israel`s Batsheva Dance Company comes to Seattle on Thursday, Nov. 2. Presented by the Seattle Theatre Group, Batsheva will present its newest work, THREE, at the Moore Theatre. As the name suggests, the performance has three distinct parts, each of which explores different ideas and phrases of movement. The sectionsContinue Reading
Music of Remembrance`s concert connects a lost Jewish community to Seattle Whenever Mina Miller plans a new concert season for Music of Remembrance, Seattle`s arts organization dedicated to remembering Holocaust musicians, the goal is always to create a musical program that personalizes the Holocausts and pays tribute to its victims.Continue Reading
I have long been a big fan of science fiction literature. My first favorite authors were Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Ira Levin and Isaac Asimov, and despite the fact my reading routine has expanded somewhat in the intervening years, my interest in alien societies and their interaction with human beingsContinue Reading
Eight artists are drawing from their past to honor the Jewish New Year in a show at the Columbia City Gallery in South Seattle. `Drawing in the New Year: Exploring memory and ancestry at the Jewish New Year,` is a warm and powerful tribute to the essence of all thatContinue Reading
In recent years, Seattle has imported a few of the hallmarks of New York City life. There are the New York-style condos, a euphemism for any apartment under 500 square feet. There are New York-style nightclubs, meaning any venue that charges a high entry fee and employs a doorman toContinue Reading
After three engagements in London and one suspended run in New York, the controversial one-woman play My Name is Rachel Corrie will open in Seattle. Corrie is based on the journal entries and e-mails of a 23-year-old political activist from Olympia killed in the Gaza Strip in 2003. The SeattleContinue Reading
From around the world, music-seeking tourists are gathering for Seattle Opera’s productions of the four operas of Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Niebelung, otherwise known as Wagner’s “Ring Cycle.” These four long evenings of mythological fantasy (Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Gotterdämmerung) may not be every music lover’sContinue Reading
Maybe Periel Aschenbrand’s name is indicative of her incendiary character. One thing is for certain, she doesn’t mince words. Statements such as “I despise this administration, it makes me sick what goes on in this world,” are just a foretaste of the vehement politics and outspoken views contained in herContinue Reading
Carmit Zori’s talent brought her to the attention of the late renowned musician Isaac Stern. It was he who made it possible for the 15-year-old Israeli violinist to study in the United States, where she has built an outstanding career. Zori graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music, soloed withContinue Reading
Julie Warwick tells the tale of two brothers who lived on opposite sides of a hill (and if this is not exactly the way it happened, it should have): Their father was a successful wheat farmer and, before he died, he divided his farm, giving a portion to each son.Continue Reading
Historical circumstances and economic necessity have often sent Jews wandering, and thereby hang these tales of exploration and discovery. Sam Apple’s Schlepping Through the Alps (Ballantine, cloth, $23.95) carries the unwieldy, but descriptive subtitle, My Search for Austria’s Jewish Past with Its Last Wandering Shepherd. Apple is a young journalistContinue Reading
In The Outside World, bestselling author Tovah Mirvis takes us into the homes, hearts and minds of two Northeastern Orthodox Jewish families: the Goldmans, an ultra-Orthodox family in Brooklyn, who spend most of their spare time finding suitable husbands for their daughters, and the Millers, a modern Orthodox family fromContinue Reading
Lukas Foss: Elegy for Anne Frank (Naxos 8.559438) The title work and four other Foss pieces share this disc with one Seattle Symphony performance, conducted by Gerard Schwarz, a work called “The Heavenly Feast,” by Robert Beaser. Soprano Constance Hauman solos in Beaser’s setting of a text by the AmericanContinue Reading
This May, renowned Jewish songstress Debbie Friedman will come to Seattle to give a special performance at the Jewish Education Council’s “Celebrate Teachers” event. The concert will honor Jewish community teachers in general and Carol Oseran Starin, JEC executive director and vice president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle,Continue Reading
The Hip Hop Hoodios first emerged with their debut EP, Raza Hoodio, back in 2002. With this debut, the Hoodios embraced the task of exposing the world to the often-overlooked Latino Jewish community. In their album-length follow-up, Agua Pa’ La Gente, the Hoodios continue their effort to educate people aboutContinue Reading
Music of Remembrance’s spring concert “In Defiance!” is a diverse musical offering of Holocaust-era and contemporary composition. MOR Artistic Director Mina Miller chose this eclectic program with Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, in mind. As always, she says she is absolutely committed to broadening the definition of how an audienceContinue Reading
University of Washington professor Naomi Sokoloff issued a well-defined invitation to her Jewish Studies colleagues around the U.S. and Canada when she envisioned the symposium “American Jewish Writing Today.” Sokoloff wanted papers, lectures and discussion to address Jewish writing published since 2000. The interdisciplinary group of contributors at the AprilContinue Reading
In contrast to the incendiary 2004 release of Mel Gibson’s bloody epic The Passion of the Christ, the current British film version of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice came and went from theaters with relatively little fanfare. Though Merchant’s early 2005 Seattle run registered barely a blip on theContinue Reading
You don’t usually think of your local librarian as a rock star. Nonetheless, it’s hard to find a better word to describe local book aficionado Nancy Pearl. Besides the fact that she has her own action figure, her daily schedule consists of jetting around the country giving talks about books.Continue Reading
