Nusakh Vilne Memorial
Vilna, c. 1920s-30s. YIVO Archives. |
Annual Nusakh Vilne Memorial Program
Lecture & Concert In Person:Admission: Free Zoom Livestream:Admission: Free |
Join us in commemorating the Jewish community of Vilna through poetry, music, and presentation.
This year, Alyssa Quint will discuss the work of folk bard and songwriter Elyokem Tsunzer (Eliakum Zunser). A performance of Tsunzer’s music by tenor Maximillian Jansen and pianist Daniel Schlosberg will follow Quint’s presentation.
About the Participants
Alyssa Quint is a cultural historian, an editor at Tablet Magazine, and the host of Tablet’s new podcast Jewish Studies Unscrolled. She is the author of The Rise of the Modern Yiddish Theater (2019), a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and a finalist for the Jordan Schnitzer Award. She is also the editor of two volumes on the Yiddish theater, Women on the Yiddish Stage and Avrom Goldfaden’s Shulamis: a Critical Edition. She is a contributing editor of the online Digital Yiddish Theater Project and a curator of a number of exhibits at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research where she served as senior scholar for many years. She is also an editor of the Yiddish Voices series at Bloomsbury.
Tenor Maximillian Jansen is a versatile performer acclaimed for his work in opera, concert, and musical theater, praised for his “warm, but penetrating voice” (The Times Union). Recent highlights include his Lincoln Center debut with the New York Choral Society in Honegger’s King David, appearances with the Metropolitan Opera, Berkshire Opera Festival, and Opera Saratoga, and performances at the Bard Music Festival. In 2022, he presented a live premiere of a new work by David Ludwig Serkin for the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. This premiere was given as part of YIVO’s Continuing Evolution: Yiddish Folksong Today, a music festival celebrating Yiddish folksong.
Brooklyn-based composer, pianist, arranger, and music director Dan Schlosberg creates acclaimed work across opera, theater, and concert music. Recent projects include arrangements and music direction of the original cast recording of Heartbeat Opera’s Manon! (2026); the new opera Complications In Sue (2026) with Michael R. Jackson’s libretto at Opera Philadelphia; the new musical The Counterfeit Opera (2025), which premiered at Little Island; and new orchestration for Poul Ruders’ The Handmaid’s Tale (2025) at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. In 2021, Schlosberg was the audition, rehearsal, and soundtrack pianist for Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story.