Journeys in Jewish Choral Music: Performing the South African Archives of Synagogue Composers from the Soviet Union
- Submitting institution
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The University of Leeds
: A - Music
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies : A - Music
- Output identifier
- UOA33A-4444
- Type
- T - Other
- DOI
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- Location
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- Brief description of type
- Portfolio of Performing Editions, with accompanying performances and documentation
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month
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- Year
- 2020
- URL
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https://journeys-in-jewish-choral-music.org/
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Undertaken within the frame of the AHRC-funded Performing the Jewish Archive (PtJA), this website documents research focussed on the music of five synagogue composers from the former Russian/Soviet Empires. David Nowakowsky (1848–1921) died in poverty amidst the Ukrainian pogroms of 1917–21; Dovid Ayznshtat (1890–1942) and Josef Gottbeter (1877–1942) were both murdered during the Holocaust. By contrast, Froim Spektor (1888–1948) and Morris Katzin (1902–74) escaped Rostov-on-Don and Riga, settling in South Africa, and thereby salvaged their own manuscripts and many by Nowakowsky, Ayznshtat and Gottbeter, all now under the care of their descendants in Cape Town.
Few previous scholars have considered the role of the (South) African Jewish diaspora in preserving musical archives from WWII and before. The recovery and restoration of ten musical works, once presumed destroyed or lost to obscurity, has thus enabled a re-evaluation of the musicians in question, their compositions, and the professional networks and interpersonal relationships that they maintained despite their widely dispersed locations.
The research involved (i) historical and community work, building contacts for (ii) ethnographic fieldwork, to gain access to (iii) (privately held) archival musical sources, not previously accessed by (or in some cases known to) scholars, which were (iv) transcribed, edited, and reconstructed leading to (v) live performances (many also captured in recordings), bringing previously obscure or unknown musical heritages into the public domain.
Between 2014 and 2017, multiple performances of the work which has been recovered occurred, particularly during PtJA’s five week-long international festivals, contextualised by public lectures, programme-notes, and a public exhibition. Further performances were broadcast by the BBC from Wigmore Hall and presented at the UK Parliament’s 2017 Holocaust Memorial Day event. The edited editions of the performed works were made available on the Journeys in Jewish Choral Music website in December 2020.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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