Sweet Is Thy Voice: The Song of Songs in Concert

Sidney Krum Young Artists Concert Series The Sidney Krum Young Artists Concert Series is made possible by a generous gift from the Estate of Sidney Krum. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. Admission: $15 YIVO members & students: $10 Watch the video

View the evening’s program.

Shir hashirim, “The Song of Songs,” is the ur-love poem. An ecstatic erotic book found in ketuvim (writings) in the Hebrew bible, it has been a source of inspiration for generation after generation of Hebrew love poems, and has inspired musical settings in a variety of languages, from a variety of Jewish and non-Jewish perspectives. This concert will feature a selection of songs that set to music both excerpts of “The Song of Songs” and texts inspired by it, in languages ranging from Hebrew and Yiddish to English, Russian, German, and Latin.

The evening will feature performances of music composed by classical mainstays Claudio Monteverdi and J. S. Bach, “postminimalist enfant terrible” (The New Yorker) David Lang, NYC Yiddish Theater composers Joseph Rumshinsky, Arnold Perlmutter, and Herman Wohl, and composers affiliated with the Society for Jewish Folk Music of St. Petersburg, an organization founded by students of Rimsky-Korsakov to foster Jewish classical music, Mikhail Gnesin, Lazare Saminsky, and Lyubov Streicher. The program is capped off with newly commissioned works from New York based composer of "plush... elusive" music (NY Times) Loren Loiacono, and London-based Israeli composer, Na’ama Zisser, whose opera Mamzer was recently premiered at the Royal Opera House in London.

Performances by the following artists:

Singers, Lucy Fitz Gibbon, Marie Marquis, Kristin Gornstein, and Jonathan Woody
Piano, Miki Sawada
Violin, Matheus Souza
Viola, Colin Brookes
Cello, Clare Monfredo
Percussion, Ian Rosenbaum