zahava seewald + psamim
Ashkenaz Songs
Categories:
SR89
CD jewel case
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ZAHAVA SEEWALD
Zavaha's voice could first be heard in "Yiddish and Judeo-sSanish Songs" by Mosaic Trio (SR54) and in "Psamim 1" (SR89). Her group including accordionist Martin Weinberg, has, in the same time, recorded for John Zorn 's Tzadik in New York. This second opus retains the perfect alchemy between voice and instruments (violin, accordion...), an ideal formula for these moving, nostalgic songs, which sometimes are closer to warm lyricism. This record also breathes new life into traditional Jewish music. It conveys the adventure of a people who have become the adventure of all human beings.
AN ATTITUDE FOR A TIMELESS MUSIC
Zahava: "Psamim is born from my desire as a singer to retrace the lineage of Yiddish songs. From this repertoire of Eastern Europe I have chosen mostly little-known songs that express a complex and emotional universe. If this repertoire belongs to a people, a region, a moment of jewish history, it takes on an important sense that goes beyond the nostalgia of a lost world. Because these songs allow me to express an inner nature and a link to the present world, they are part of modernity."
ASHKENAZ SONGS
Some of these songs stem from Easter European folklore (Lekhaim Rebbe, Trink Bruder...) or Liturgical chant (Anim Zemiros), others reflect the difficulty of living (Papirosn) or at work (Mit a nodl or Ikh hob a kleynem yingele, a lullaby written in New York in 1887 that describes the misery of work in these time) or evoke a world that is no more, a harsh world where human life was worth very little - and nostalgia, nostalgia for lost youth... (Vu bistu geven): "Where were you when life was beautiful, when we loved each other. Today our heads are gray and our hands tremble..."