Henech Kon: Beyond the Dybbuk

Lecture & Performance Co-sponsored by the Jewish Music Forum Admission: $15 YIVO members & students: $10 Watch the video

Lecture by Diana Matut

With a live performance of Kon's works by Re'ut Ben-Ze'ev (mezzo soprano) and Zalmen Mlotek (piano).

Henech Kon is best known today as the composer of the film score for The Dybbuk and his songs, such as “Shpil zhe mir a lidele in Yidish.” He was, however, also a brilliant pianist and musicologist, and wrote arrangements for dozens of Yiddish songs and other scores, among them Freylekhe kaptsonim (‘Jolly Paupers’, 1937). Born in Poland and educated in Berlin, he moved to Warsaw where he worked with the great writers of his time, and wrote music for their plays and kleynkunst performances. Melech Ravitch called him “the Jewish musician par excellence.”

After fleeing Europe in 1940, Kon settled in New York, where his life was marked by an unsuccessful, constant struggle for work and recognition. By the time of his death in 1972, Kon had already become virtually forgotten, even in Yiddish musical circles.

This lecture will present Kon’s life and work, and help to bring him the recognition he is due – and his music back on stage.

About the Participants

Diana Matut, PhD, is a lecturer in Jewish Studies at the University Halle-Wittenberg. In 1999 she earned her Diploma in Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Oxford University, followed by an MA in Yiddish Studies at SOAS, London. She participated in the Advanced Seminar for Yiddish Studies at JTS – taught in Yiddish. She regularly teaches and lectures at universities in Europe and in Israel.

Outside of her academic career, Diana is a singer and leader of the band Simkhat Hanefesh (Joy of the Soul), which performs Jewish music and Yiddish songs of the Renaissance and Baroque period. She teaches old Yiddish song and children’s song workshops at Yiddish Summer Weimar, and has produced a CD with Yiddish songs for and with children (Far dem nayem dor – For the New Generation). Diana is also the translator of children’s poems by Kadia Molodowsky. www.simkhat-hanefesh.com

Israeli-American performer Re’ut Ben-Ze’ev has been gaining international acclaim for her ”…bold, committed [and] deeply physical performance” (The New York Times), “intense expression and pure voice, igniting fireworks” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) and “outstandingly beautiful voice and performance” (YIVO News). In Summer 2016, Ben Ze’ev performed with members of the Berlin Philharmonic Berio’s FOLK SONGS and Yiddish Art Songs to a rave review stating she “performed magic” (Augsburger-Allgemeine). Her voice has been recently featured on the Soundtrack of Natalie Portman’s directorial debut film A TALE OF LOVE AND DARKNESS, released on Warner Brother’s Milan Records. Re’ut has appeared internationally in venues such as Lincoln Center, Spoleto Festival, YIVO, The American Academy in Berlin, Jerusalem Music Centre, Israel Vocal Arts Institute, and PBS webcast. A champion of new music and Jewish music, she worked with composers as Samuel Adler, Dalit Warshaw, Pulitzer Prize winning composers Yehudi Wyner and David Del Tredici, and conductors as Leonard Slatkin, Grammy Award Winner Lucas Richman, KarlHeinz Steffens, David Randolph. Coached by Mascha Benya z”l—the world renowned interpreter of Yiddish songs—Re’ut recorded Yiddish art songs for the Milken Archive of American-Jewish Music on the Naxos Label, accompanied by Yehudi Wyner. She also recorded for the YIVO Label songs of V. Heifetz with pianist and music director Zalmen Mlotek and premiered Dalit Warshaw’s innovative setting of the prayer for the new moon: Kiddush Halevana on Albany Records. Other recordings also include Delos Records, Furious Artisans. Re’ut is also an avid educator and led lectures and workshops at YIVO-Bard and YIVO-NYU summer programs, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Stern College at Yeshiva University, and numerous others. She has a private studio in NYC.

A special highlight of upcoming projects includes an Israeli-American co-production of iconic Israeli songs concert, to be re-orchestrated for her by their original orchestrator, Shimon Cohen.

Zalmen Mlotek is the Artistic Director of The National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene (NYTF), the country's longest running Yiddish theater. 

Mlotek brought Yiddish-Klezmer music to Broadway and Off-Broadway stages with original revues he co-authored. His shows, Those Were The Days, The Golden Land, and On Second Avenue have received Tony nominations and Drama Desk awards. He has served as music director at Williamston Theatre Festival, The Great Lakes Theater Festival, The American Repertory Theater, The American Music Theater Festival, and the American Conservatory Theater. Among the many collaborations as pianist and conductor Mlotek has worked with Itzhak Perlman, Theodore Bikel, Jean Stapleton, Sheldon Harnick, Jan Peerce, Joshua Bell, Ron Rifkin, and Joel Grey, among others. He was a creative consultant to Michael Tilson Thomas' PBS special, The Thomashevskys, and to Mandy Patinkin on the recording and concert: Mameloshn. 

As Artistic Director of the NYTF, Mr. Mlotek has been at the helm for the past eighteen years reviving glittering gems of the Yiddish classical theater and bringing leading contemporary creative representatives of modern Yiddish performing arts to the stage. Last season the NYTF's main stage production "The Golden Bride" (Rumshinsky, 1923) was a New York Times and New Yorker Critic's pick and nominated for two Drama Desk Awards under the baton of Mlotek conducting a 14-piece orchestra. This past summer marked the third annual YiddishSoul concert at Central Park's SummerStage which featured Hasidic superstars and Klezmer bands performing in Yiddish to thousands of New Yorkers.

The son of renowned Yiddish musicologist, Chana Gordon Mlotek, Zalmen grew up hearing the music of Henech Kon as performed by his mother as well as Ben Bonus, Mina Bern and Leon Liebgold, all of whom worked with Kon. Mlotek has been a leading figure in the Yiddish performing arts world since his youth and his playing can be heard over two dozens albums and recordings. For more, visit www.zalmenmlotek.com and www.folksbiene.org.