Revolutionary Yiddishland with Isabel Frey
Sun, 30 Apr 2023 (EDT)
07:00PM - 09:00PM
Jalopy Theatre
315 Columbia Street
Brooklyn, NY 112311
Featuring Ira Temple and Rachel Weston.
Isabel Frey has defied her Viennese-Jewish bourgeois upbringing by embracing the repertoire of Yiddish revolutionary and resistance songs. Songs of class conflict and antifascism from 100 years ago continue to speak to our contemporary political struggles. In this program, Frey will present a number of old and new revolutionary Yiddish songs, as well as expanding the definition of what makes a song "revolutionary“. Aside from old Yiddish protest and workers’ songs as well as songs from Jewish antifascist resistance, she also includes new Yiddish songs as well as contemporary settings of Yiddish womens’ poetry. Revolutionary Yiddishland is thus not only an artifact of the past, but also in continuity with the contemporary transnational Yiddish revitalization movement.
Isabel Frey is a Yiddish singer and a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. As a performer, she specializes in Yiddish revolutionary songs and continuing the tradition of Jewish social justice activism both on stages and at political protests. She regularly performs Yiddish music either as a soloist, in the duo Soveles, and with the Isabel Frey Trio. She has performed at various international festivals and venues, such as the KlezMORE Festival Bratislava, the Singera Festival in Warsaw, and the Willy Brandt Center in Jerusalem. In September 2020 she released her debut album "Millenial Bundist" with Yiddish revolutionary and resistance songs, and in November 2022 her debut album with the Yiddish feminist song duo Soveles. Isabel Frey is currently conducting research at Harvard University.
Isabel Frey has defied her Viennese-Jewish bourgeois upbringing by embracing the repertoire of Yiddish revolutionary and resistance songs. Songs of class conflict and antifascism from 100 years ago continue to speak to our contemporary political struggles. In this program, Frey will present a number of old and new revolutionary Yiddish songs, as well as expanding the definition of what makes a song "revolutionary“. Aside from old Yiddish protest and workers’ songs as well as songs from Jewish antifascist resistance, she also includes new Yiddish songs as well as contemporary settings of Yiddish womens’ poetry. Revolutionary Yiddishland is thus not only an artifact of the past, but also in continuity with the contemporary transnational Yiddish revitalization movement.
Isabel Frey is a Yiddish singer and a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. As a performer, she specializes in Yiddish revolutionary songs and continuing the tradition of Jewish social justice activism both on stages and at political protests. She regularly performs Yiddish music either as a soloist, in the duo Soveles, and with the Isabel Frey Trio. She has performed at various international festivals and venues, such as the KlezMORE Festival Bratislava, the Singera Festival in Warsaw, and the Willy Brandt Center in Jerusalem. In September 2020 she released her debut album "Millenial Bundist" with Yiddish revolutionary and resistance songs, and in November 2022 her debut album with the Yiddish feminist song duo Soveles. Isabel Frey is currently conducting research at Harvard University.
Photo credit Michèle Pauty