Composer Alex Weiser, a current LABA fellow, is also director of Public Programs at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City. His new album, and all the days were purple will be released on April 12 by Cantaloupe Music. Weiser set Yiddish and English poems to music to create an absorbing and
Yonatan Gutfeld is a current LABA fellow composing a song cycle based on the poems of Ori Bernstein. Misha Shulman is a LABA fellow, playwright and educator studying to be a rabbi. LABA Journal editor Gordon Haber met with Gutfeld and Shulman in a Brooklyn bar to discuss life, death, and vodka. (Gutfeld will perform
Editor’s note: Below, LABA fellow Marques Hollie discusses his project Go Down, Moshe, which explores the Passover story in light of American slavery. Hollie uses the term “enslaved people.” He explains: “the term ‘slaves’ allows others to distance themselves from the humanity and personhood each and every one of these people possessed.” The Hebrew Bible
Marques Hollie is an operatic tenor and facilitator of creative Jewish ritual with a focus on Jews of color. His LABA project, Go Down Moshe, is a solo show comprised of text from the Haggadah, Negro spirituals and devised slave narratives. (See an excerpt at LABALive on April 18, 2019, at the 14 Street Y
By Mariano Wainsztein Born in Argentina and raised in Israel, LABA fellow Mariano Wainsztein is now a New York-based composer. He and his band the Ivankas will perform at LABAlive 2: LIFE + DEATH, Thursday, April 18th, 7.30pm at The Theater at the 14th Street Y. Get your tickets now. The Ivankas current song-cycle is
By Amy Handelsman Who honors the spaces left by the dead? This question is the guiding principle and raison d’être for Maya Ciarocchi, who brings honor to the lost spaces and the dead of Ożarów, Poland in her stirring multi-media art installation Site: Yizkor, recently shown in the lobby of the 14 Street Y as
“I walk around New York City with my guitar,” says Yonatan Gutfeld. “That’s how I spend my days. I teach in pre-schools, music in Hebrew, and I perform at events for the Hebrew-speaking community.” Raised in Jerusalem, he studied the cello and served as pianist and singer in the Israeli Air Force band. He then
When I started the LABA fellowship in September, I had no idea how intensely personal the topic of “Life and Death” would become: on November 7th, Juris Jurjevics, my husband of almost 20 years, died without warning. (Read his New York Times obituary here.) I’d like to thank the LABA cohort and staff for their warmth and concern over the past
The first LABAlive of 2019 was a resounding success. The house was packed, the performances outstanding — an evening demonstrating why LABA is the premier incubator of Jewish culture in New York City. Check out some photos from: Ari Brand’s Missing (play)Maya Ciarrocchi’s Site: Yizkor (text and visual art) Yochai Greenfield’s It Gets Bitter (play)Alex
Ari Brand is an actor, musician, and lifelong New Yorker. He has performed on Broadway, off Broadway, and across the country. Brand spoke to us about his current LABA project, a play based on his own experience of discovering that his father, the renowned pianist Natan Brand, lived much of his life as a gay man. Natan Brand died of AIDS in 1990. I had