Yiddish Choral Series

Series Editors: Samuel Seifert and Ludwig Bhme

Yiddish folk songs explore the complete range of human emotions, powerfully expressing all that the Jewish people have loved, embraced and endured. Since their origins in the 14th century, the songs have traditionally been passed on to each generation as words and melodies alone. The Yiddish Choral Series now makes this music available for the first time in stunning new arrangements for choirs.

Series Editors Samuel Seifert (a member of Ensemble Rozhinkes) and Ludwig Bhme (director of the Leipzig Synagogal Choir) have commissioned a range of renowned international arrangers to illustrate the huge variety of creative responses to Yiddish songs: from simple choral settings to expansive, through-composed concert arrangements, and from typical Yiddish harmonies to aleatoric composition.

The Yiddish Choral Series, which allows choirs everywhere to discover the fascinating world of Yiddish song, features:

• A range of choral styles and levels of difficulty, to suit all programming requirements
• Informative introductions to each piece
• Transliterated Yiddish lyrics, with poetic translations into English and German alongside the original Hebrew text

The Yiddish folk song Dzhankoye reflects the pride of Jewish peasants who sing of a Jewish kolkhoz (collective farm) on the Crimean peninsula. Juan M.V. Garcia’s arrangement (duration: 2 minutes) leaves the performers plenty of scope for their own creativity: the melody and the choral ‘background’ can be performed in a variety of ways and enriched by clapping and other effects.