Soveles - Album presentation

Soveles (meaning "small owls“ in Yiddish) is a Vienna-based Yiddish a song duo, which has specialized in the intimate performance style of unaccompanied Yiddish (folk-)song. As an expressive genre largely practiced by women, many of these songs address themes that can today be read in relation to feminism, human rights and social justice. Isabel Frey and Esther Wratschko both singers and lovers of this repertoire and style, have studied this musical tradition with mentors like Michael Alpert and Ethel Raim, and grown inspired by the numerous amounts of archival field recordings of traditional signers digitally available today. While originally a solo singing tradition, they arrange and perform these songs as duets, trying to stay close to the intimacy of the performance practice while also exploring the joys of singing in harmony. Their program combines older ballads and lyrical love songs with some new Yiddish songs of contemporary composers such as Elfin Chorny and Benjy Fox-Rosen, thereby highlighting the continuity of the Yiddish folksong tradition. In November 2022 they released their debut album with the Austrian label Klangue Records and presented it at the Vienna KlezMore Festival.