Soviet Songs with a Jewish Flavor: Evgeny Kissin, Boris Sandler, Margarita and Nukhim Koyfman

Concert Co-sponsored by the Russian American Foundation Admission: $20 YIVO members: $15

Join Evgeny Kissin, Boris Sandler, and the Koyfmans to celebrate their CD, Songs with a Jewish Flavor, with an evening of music performance, Yiddish poetry readings, and excerpts from Soviet films. Featuring popular Soviet songs by composers such as Isaak Dunayevsky and Nikita Bogoslovsky, Songs with a Jewish Flavor includes new compositions by Rita Koyfman, and lyrics by Boris Sandler. Gennady Estraikh (NYU) will discuss the significance of Soviet music. CDs available for sale after the program.

About the Performers

Evgeny Kissin (b. 1971, Moscow) is a world-renowned classical pianist. He began to play by ear and improvise on the piano at the age of two. At six years old he entered the Moscow Gnessin School of Music for Gifted Children, where he was a student of Anna Pavlovna Kantor. At the age of ten, he made his concerto debut playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto K. 466 and gave his first solo recital in Moscow one year later. He has since become in demand the world over, and has appeared with many of today’s great conductors, including Abbado, Ashkenazy, Barenboim, Dohnanyi, Giulini, Levine, Maazel, Muti and Ozawa, as well as all of the world’s great orchestras.

Mr. Kissin has received numerous musical awards throughout his career, including the Crystal Prize of the Osaka Symphony Hall for the Best Performance of the Year (1986, following his first performance in Japan), the Triumph Award for his outstanding contribution to Russian culture (1997), and two Grammy Awards for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra) (2006, 2009).

Boris Sandler was born in 1950 in Beltz (Bessarabia). In 1975 he graduated from the Music Conservatory of Kishinev and played violin in the Moldavian Symphony Orchestra.

From 1989-1992, Sandler was the President of the Yiddish Cultural Organization of Moldavia, and from 1990 until his immigration to Israel in 1992, was the Yiddish Editor of the bilingual journal Undzer Kol (Our Voice) in Kishinev. Sandler is the author of two documentary film scripts, Don't Give Up, Yiddish (1991) and Where is My Home? (1992), which dealt with the fate of Bessarabian Jewry. He is the author of fourteen books of fiction and poetry, and is the recipient of numerous prestigious Israeli literary awards.  His works have been translated into Russian, English, French, German, Hebrew and Romanian. Since 1998, Sandler has been the Editor-in-Chief of the Yiddish newspaper Forverts.

Margarita and Nukhim Koyfman together form the husband-wife team of the Rita and Naum Orchestra. Performing songs old and new and from around the world, the Rita and Naum Orchestra performs in fourteen languages including Russian, English, Italian, French, Spanish, Hebrew and Yiddish.

Rita Koyfman was born in Russia, Irkutsk. Lead singer in the popular band Bukuria, she also worked in Kishinev State Philharmonic of Moldova. Nukhim Koyfman was born in Moldova, Beltz and led the well-known Moldavian band, Orion.