Michael Alpert

Michael Alpert (born 1954, Los Angeles, USA) is a klezmer and Yiddish singer, multi-instrumentalist, scholar and educator and has been called a key figure[1] in the klezmer revival of the 1970s and 1980s.[2] He has played in a number of groups since that time, including The An-Sky Ensemble,[3] Brave Old World, Khevrisa, Kapelye, The Brothers Nazaroff and Voices of Ashkenaz, as well as with clarinetist David Krakauer, hip-hop artist Socalled and bandurist Julian Kytasty. Alpert is a pioneering teacher and researcher of Yiddish traditional dance and has been central to restoring Yiddish dance to its time-honored place in tandem with klezmer music.[4] He is a recipient of the 2015 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.[5] Alpert continues to perform and teach worldwide.[6]

Alpert has travelled throughout Eastern Europe and the Americas to document Jewish traditional musicians and singers, and published an article in American Klezmer: Its Roots and Offshoots about Warsaw-born klezmer drummer Ben Bazyler (1922-1990). (readable here on Google Books). Alpert can be credited with initiating the revival of rhythmic and harmonic "sekund" fiddling in klezmer music, an important aspect of traditional klezmer string technique which had fallen out of use in Yiddish music before the klezmer revitalization.[7]

He was musical director of the PBS Great Performances special Itzhak Perlman: In the Fiddler's House.

References
  1. Slobin, Mark (2000). Fiddler on the Move: Exploring the Klezmer World. American Musicspheres. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 30. ISBN 978-0195131246.
  2. "Brave Old World: Home of the Braves". Archived from the original on January 7, 2011. Retrieved October 16, 2017.
  3. "The An-Sky Ensemble". Center for Traditional Music and Dance. 2014. Retrieved June 6, 2018.
  4. Gelfand, Alexander (February 20, 2008). "Symposium Seeks To Save Yiddish Dance". forward.com. The Forward Association. Retrieved October 16, 2017.
  5. "NEA National Heritage Fellowships 2015". www.arts.gov. National Endowment for the Arts. Archived from the original on September 28, 2020. Retrieved February 7, 2021.
  6. "July 8 [2017]: Fiddle Tunes Finale". Centrum. July 5, 2017. Retrieved June 6, 2018.
  7. Cohen, Bob (2009). "Jewish Fiddle". www.dinayekapelye.com. Retrieved October 16, 2017.


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