Brundibar (The Bumblebee) – What Does it Mean to You and Me?

Brundibar is a children’s opera written by Czech composer Hans Krasa and performed at the Terezin concentration camp more than fifty times, as part of a Nazi propaganda effort to deceive international observers and reduce suspicions about the facility.

Several days after the last performance, the composer and most of the children were sent to their deaths at Auschwitz.

On June 28th and 29th, Colorado Music Festival will present this timeless story that unites kids and their animal friends against the town bully.  The Festival will collaborate with the University of Colorado Opera Program to present a semi-staged production featuring CU students as well as a children’s chorus.  Ela Weissberger, a Holocaust survivor who, as a young child, performed the role of The Cat while in Terezin, will travel to Colorado to be a part of this production.  During her stay in Boulder, Ms. Weissberger will share her life story and participate in several events for our community. Click here for tickets >>

The presentation of Brundibar is part of the Festival’s Rediscovered Masters Program, a series of performances celebrating Jewish composers and their music, with an emphasis on music composed before, during, and immediately after World War II. For more information visit www.comusic.org.

Come get a sneak preview on Thursday, June 7th at The Dairy Center for the Arts, 2590 Walnut Street, 80302. Boulder Renewal Rabbi Tirzah Firestone will guide us through a conversation about this unique production.  Guests will get an insider’s view into CMF’s upcoming production with University of Colorado Opera Program Director Leigh Holman.  Hear musical selections, learn about the historical context, and see visuals of past productions.  To enhance the experience, Boulder Rabbis Joshua Rose (Reform), Marc Soloway (Conservative) and Gavriel Goldfeder (Orthodox) will together examine the libretto and share their insights. The event is free, but space is limited.  Early arrival is recommended.

Colorado Music Festival extends a special thank you to the event Co-Sponsor, The Dairy Center for the Arts!  Event Community Partners are Haver and University of Colorado Boulder Opera Program.

PLUS: FREE MUSIC FESTIVAL TICKETS FOR JEWISH STUDENTS! Thanks to the support of Rose Community Foundation, Colorado Music Festival is offering 100 FREE General Admission Brundibar tickets to Jewish students ages 10 and up. Alternatively, students can buy any reserved seat at a 50% discount! Accompanying adults receive $10 off their tickets as well. Please contact Margaret Romero at romero@comusic.org or 303-449-1397, ext 7 for tickets! Brundibar performances are Thursday, June 28th and Friday, June 29th at 7:30pm at Chautauqua Auditorium. Visit www.comusic.org for more information.

When asked about her inspiration for the song, Florence replied, “I was still ecstatic over a great Purim and almost forgot that Passover was fast approaching.  I thought to myself, what is my favorite part of this festive holiday?  Dinner with family?  Four glasses of wine? No!  Actually, I love not eating any bread products for a whole week! Then before I knew it, the song was written and we were producing the music video.”

Florence and the Meshugenahs are currently planning a summer tour with Guns N’ Rose-nzweig as well as a few guest appearances by Channukah Harry!

Check out their YouTube video here:

A bookplate from the Fingesten Collection at CU Boulder

On Wednesday March 7 at 7:00 pm Davide Stimilli, associate professor of German and Comparative Literature and Jewish Studies, will present a lecture on the life and work of Jewish-Italian bookplate artist Michel Fingesten (1884-1943).

In March 2011, Stimilli recommended the purchase of a large collection of Fingesten’s works, including 154 items, that had been assembled by an unknown collector, possibly bibliophile Fridolf Johnson, editor of the American Artist Magazine. The CU Art Museum purchased this collection with funds generously provided by donors to the Program in Jewish Studies, and the Fingesten Collection is now part of the CU Art Museum’s Permanent Collection.

Michel Fingesten (originally Michl Finkelstein) was born in 1884 in the village of Buckovice (Buczkowitz), Silesia, in the Habsburg Empire, now part of the Czech Republic, from a Czech-Jewish father and an Italian-Jewish mother, and died in 1943 in Cerisano, Southern Italy, after the liberation by the allies of the camp in which he had been interned since 1941. He was one of the most original and productive graphic artists and bookplate designers of the twentieth century, especially noted for his Surrealist and Cubist influenced prints and paintings that capture the darkening mood of Europe associated with Fascism, Nazism, and World War II.

This lecture will introduce the work of this extraordinary artist and the collection at the CU Art Museum. Selections from the Fingesten Collection are on view at the CU Art Museum Lobby through March 9. The CU Art Museum will be open until 7:00 pm on Wednesday, March 7 to allow for viewing prior to the lecture.

Charming Hostess Performs at CU March 8 at 7:30 PM

On Thursday, March 8 at 7:30 pm in the ATLAS Center Black Box Theater we are excited to present a rockin’ performance with the “nerdy-sexy-commie-girly” band, Charming Hostess. Their music has been described as both physical and intellectual, using voices, vocal percussion, handclaps, heartbeats, sex-breath and silence to explore such topics as the Bosnian genocide in their album Sarajevo Blues and the political/erotic nexus of Walter Benjamin and his Marxist muse in Trilectic. Both of these works were released on John Zorn’s Radical Jewish series on Tzadik. L.A. Weekly described Charming Hostess “as the finest anarchist-feminist-polyphonic-polyrhythmic-polymorphously perverse-balkan-blue-ish-Jewish-freak-funk-punk band working in America today. Their live shows are as fabulous and eccentric as their music.”

This special Purim performance with Charming Hostess is inspired by the life and work of the Italian anti-facists Natalia and Leone Ginzburg.  Exploring their journeys of love, resistance, exile and liberation, this concert will feature new music composed and developed from the writings of the Ginzburgs as well as from the Italian regional traditions of Turin, Abruzzo and Rome, places central to their lives. This performance will also feature music from Italian Jewish liturgy, the oldest and most remote in Europe, as well as anti-fascist songs, and work chants to resistance anthems. Tickets are $5 for students, $10 for general public in advance or $15 at the door.  Tickets can be purchased on-line at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/226563. This concert will be held in the ATLAS Center Black Box Theater.  Seating is limited.  We are also excited to announce this concert has been selected to be taped for a joint production between the ATLAS Center and Colorado’s Public Broadcast System.

For questions or additional information, contact the Program in Jewish Studies at 303.492.7143 or via email at Jamie.Polliard@colorado.edu. Complete details about CU’s Week of Jewish Culture can also be found at jewishstudies.colorado.edu

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Matishayu as he came out at the Boulder Theater.

So, same long wait, same great reggae rock music.  “Jerusalem” sounds just as good without the hair.  Just for the record, Matisyahu still sports kippah and tzitzit under his long black coat, but with dark glasses instead of facial hair, he looks more mainstream.  Sort of.  In any case, he sold out the Boulder Theater Thursday night for what was undoubtedly his first public non-hirsute appearance anywhere besides Twitter.

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Rabbi Marc Soloway at the concert -- and clean-shaven in solidarity with Matisyahu.

The Boulder Jewish community turned out in big numbers, but so did other fans of all colors, sizes and looks. And they were all swaying to the great beat Matisyahu lays down – heavy on the bass, and reggae and world rhythms at the same time.  “Miracle” was, well, just that… a miracle to behold.

"One Day"

Matisyahu ended his set with “One Day’, which was a beautiful thing, and had the crowd singing along.  He also brought up on stage most of the kids standing in the front row, and made a party of it.  After the song, and after the stage cleared, Matisyahu came back out for a series of long encores, apparently unusual at his concerts.

Full disclosure: I have not seen Matisyahu in concert before, nor have I listened to a great deal of his music. But I am definately a fan now, and it has nothing to do with whether or how frum he is or isn’t.  This guy just makes awesome music.  And that’s what it’s all about.

Check out concert coverage from JTA here.

Our slideshow from the show:

Matisyahu Tuesday morning, via Twitter and YFrog

BREAKING: Singer Matisyahu, known heretofore as a “chasidic reggae superstar,” posted pictures of his now naked face on Twitter and announced that “all you get is me… no alias.”

Matisyahu, who appears Thursday night here at the Boulder Theater, has been known for years for being the most visible chasidic Jew in the world: full beard, payos, black kippah, black hat and black coat.  Now he has decided the next step in his spiritual journey requires him to shed that appearance.

From his blog Tuesday morning:

This morning I posted a photo of myself on Twitter.

No more Chassidic reggae superstar.

Sorry folks, all you get is me…no alias.  When I started becoming religious 10 years ago it was a very natural and organic process.  It was my choice.  My journey to discover my roots and explore Jewish spirituality—not through books but through real life.  At a certain point I felt the need to submit to a higher level of religiosity…to move away from my intuition and to accept an ultimate truth.  I felt that in order to become a good person I needed rules—lots of them—or else I would somehow fall apart.  I am reclaiming myself.  Trusting my goodness and my divine mission.

Get ready for an amazing year filled with music of rebirth.  And for those concerned with my naked face, don’t worry…you haven’t seen the last of my facial hair.

- Matisyahu”

Meanwhile, Boulder gets to be one of the first, if not the first concert of the now-unbearded one.  If you haven’t gotten tickets yet, here is the Boulder Theater concert link.

JTA covered the story here:

NEW YORK (JTA) – The world’s most famous Chasidic Jew has shaved his beard.

With a declaration Tuesday morning that he was “reclaiming” himself, Jewish music star Matisyahu — aka Matthew Miller — shaved his signature beard and wrote, “No more Chassidic reggae superstar.”

The musician posted two photos of his newly beardless face to the social networking site Twitter and added an explanation on his website a few hours later.

“When I started becoming religious 10 years ago it was a very natural and organic process,” he wrote. “I felt that in order to become a good person I needed rules — lots of them — or else I would somehow fall apart. I am reclaiming myself.”

Read the rest of the story here.

Matisyahu

Few artists make an impact as complete as the one Matisyahu made with his Top 40 hit “King Without a Crown“: Here was a true original, the song announced — a Hasidic Jewish musician from New York City singing reggae songs about his religious devotion. Fans responded to this one-of-a-kind voice, too, driving Youth, Matisyahu’s Grammy-nominated 2006 studio disc, to the top spot on Billboard’s reggae albums chart. That album, as well as Matisahu’s previous recording Live at Stubb’s, went Gold. True originals, though, don’t stay put for long, and on his bold new album, Light, 29-year-old Matisyahu proves that there’s much more to his artistry than might initially meet the eye.

As my musical tastes have grown I have been re-discovering my sound and my voice,” he says.

Light finds Matisyahu edging away from his comfort zone into more daring territory. “Being an artist is about being sensitive to how the world resonates inside you and then being able to express it,” he says. “This process is an ever-changing one.”

Despite the lengthy and varied guest list, Light remains a work traceable only to Matisyahu’s unique creative sensibility, an album that reflects more than two years’ worth of religious study, particularly the story of the seven beggars by Reb Nachman. This is the driving spiritual force behind Light. The story is about two children who get lost in a dark forest after fleeing an invasion of their kingdom. Each night a different beggar, each of which suffers from a different ailment, approaches them with food and water.

I feel this theme, though written as a fairytale in the 1800′s, is very relevant to many of the struggles that we face today,” Matisyahu says. “From child soldiers to child sex slaves to everyday people trying to awaken their broken hearts.”

Don’t miss Matisyahu perform “Light“ and many of his other number 1 hits live at the Boulder Theater on December 15^th. Tickets available at the Boulder Theater Box Office or click here to purchase online.  Doors open at 7:30pm and show starts at 8:30 pm.

The word “opa” is the Greek equivalent of L’Chaim, used as a celebratory salutation. Unlike, “L’Chaim, which means “to life,” opa doesn’t really ‘mean’ anything. It’s an exclamation of joy, like “whoopee” or “hooray.” It is frequently used in conjunction with dancing and drinking.

OPA! Celebrating the Jews of Greece, which takes place  Saturday, December 3 starting at 6:00 pm at the Boulder JCC, is an opportunity to use both affirmations of joy. There will be dancing. There will be drinking. There will be an abundance of great food.

The Jewish presence in Greece goes back at least to the times of Alexander the Great – come experience their rich culture, cuisine and history.

The highlight of the evening will be a concert of Greek music by the band Sherefe. The evening will also include a short film about the Romaniote Jews, who have 2,000 years of history, and their own language, customs and traditions. Carlos Zarur, Menorah’s favorite teacher, will lead a discussion following the film.

Come enjoy baklava and ouzo, spanakopita and dolmas, Greek wine and Greek salad. Learn Greek dances from Jean Hertzberg. (Yes, she’s Jewish and a great dancer, but not Greek.)

Pre-registration is strongly recommended as this event fills the Boulder JCC. Tickets are $25 in advance; $30 at the door.

Jessica Gabrielle Hayoun:
Jessica was born in France and lived the first 12 years of her life between Paris and Annecy (Alpes). A talented singer, Jessica blends blues/soul/pop/jazz and includes her strong love of Musical Theatre within her creations. She dedicates all of her time to mastering the art and creatively developing her passion. Graduate of the University of Colorado at Denver, Jessica studied Music Business and performance. During her time at the University, she received first place in the Musical Theatre category of the National Association of Teachers of Music and performed among professors and professionals for a PBS fundraiser. Currently Jessica is working on several projects in the Denver area. She sings in a cover band called Snap quintet and recording in the studio. Within the next year, Jessica will be releasing an EP and hitting the road!

Stephen Thurston:
Stephen began studying Jazz on piano at a young age. He gained experience playing in the outstanding jazz program at Fairview High School in Boulder, and in the local jazz scene. While still in high school he studied piano with music theory professor/pianist Keith Waters, and the world renowned jazz pianist Art Lande. He also joined the Colorado Conservatory for the Jazz Arts (CCJA) and played in the Colorado All-State jazz band. At age 18 Stephen participated in his first commercially released recording session with CCJA that featured one of his compositions.

The St. Julien Hotel is located at 900 Walnut St., Boulder, 720-406-9696.