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"I Am Writing a Jewish Tango"

Mon, December 17, 5:00 to 6:30pm, Seaport Hotel & World Trade Center, Harborview 2 Ballroom

Abstract

On July 18, 1954, Leonard Bernstein ended a letter to his sister Shirley, “I am writing a Jewish tango. Life goes on and, I hope, advances.” Penned in Israel, most of this letter recounts ongoing conflicts between Jews and Arabs in the streets below, alongside interpersonal squabbles plaguing Bernstein and his family. Ever the optimist, Bernstein envisions happy resolutions to both sets of conflicts. Bernstein’s Jewish tango found its
way into one of several scores on which he was working that summer, specifically, his music drama Candide, a thinly veiled commentary on the McCarthy Era (as adapted from Voltaire by Lillian Hellman). This presentation explores the use of Yiddish and other Jewish tango as a means of satiric social ommentary, not just in Candide, but in the music of Igor Stravinsky, Erik Satie, Kurt Weill, Marc Blitzstein, Astor Piazzolla and many others. As a final example, the presenter will share her transformation of the tangoesque ditty “Di Grine Katshke” in her Duck Songs for tenor and piano.

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