Press Releases
Volume 07: Masterworks of Prayer
December 05, 2011
"It is a work of love; it is the voice of a creature communicating with his God."
That's how Madeleine Milhaud, widow of the French-Jewish composer and American transplant Darius Milhaud, described her husband's Service Sacré during an oral history interview with the Milken Archive of Jewish Music: The American Experience. (See a portion of the interview at the Archive's online museum.)
Milhaud wrote the Service in 1948 for Temple Emanu-El in San Francisco, and it remains a masterpiece of sacre...
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Volume 2: A Garden Eastward
October 06, 2011
Think of them as the first world musicians.
Music did not always travel as easily as it does today. Yet hundreds of years before the Internet made sharing music as easy as sending an e-mail, Sephardi Jews–those who originated on the Iberian Peninsula and subsequently dispersed across the globe, from North Africa and the Mediterranean to Europe, North America, and the Caribbean–were trading music with everyone they met.
The Milken Archive of Jewish Music: The American Experience presents the...
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Volume 13: Great Songs of the American Yiddish Stage
May 01, 2011
Imagine a time when actors were as likely to burst into song as they were to recite a few lines of dialogue.
A time before the golden age of movie musicals, or even the golden age of Broadway: the golden age of Yiddish theater, the heyday of Second Avenue.
Fortunately, you needn't rely on your imagination.
Thanks to the Milken Archive, that golden age lives again, captured in 50 classic songs rendered by the finest contemporary performers in Yiddish musical theater.
Born in Eastern Europe and ca...
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Volume 11: Symphonic Visions
May 01, 2011
Did you know that the musical polymath David Amram–a man who played jazz with Charles Mingus, championed “world music” before the term even existed, and was Leonard Bernstein's choice as the first composer-in-residence at the New York Philharmonic–also wrote Songs of the Soul, a three-movement symphony that melds cantorial melodies, Sabbath prayers, and Middle Eastern modes?
Or that the acclaimed German-born composer Ernst Toch, whose score for the Hollywood film Address Unknown earned h...
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Volume 05: The Classical Klezmer
May 01, 2011
What's in a name?
A lot, in fact–if the name in question is klezmer, and the thing it purports to describe is Eastern European Jewish folk music.
For most of its life, the word “klezmer” meant no such thing. A Yiddishized version of the Hebrew phrase for “musical instrument” (k’li zemer, lit. “vessel of song”), the term instead referred to the kind of musician (pl., “klezmorim”) who played at wedding celebrations and various secular Jewish events in Eastern Europe from the Mi...
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Volume 15: Swing His Praises
May 01, 2011
Think of Jewish liturgical music–the music of the synagogue, of the High Holidays and the Sabbath service–and many words come to mind. Words like "majestic," "stirring," and "meditative."But words like "funky," "bluesy," or "swingin'"?Well, let's be honest: not so much.Yet based on the evidence presented by the Milken Archive, perhaps they should. Exhibit A: Volume 15: "Swing His Praises," a collection of sacred works that owe as much to blues, rock, and jazz as they do to the grand traditio...
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Volume 10: Intimate Voices
May 01, 2011
Intimate. Expressive. Profound.
If you had to pick just a few defining characteristics of chamber music, these would surely top the list. They certainly apply to the music of "Intimate Voices: Solo and Ensemble Music of Jewish Spirit," Volume 10 in the Milken Archive of Jewish Music: The American Experience.
Written for solo performers and small ensembles, demanding a high degree of technical virtuosity and musical sensitivity, these compact works pack an outsized wallop. Though crafted with gre...
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Volume 16: Heroes and Heroines
May 01, 2011
Murder. Sex. Mayhem.
These are just a few of the topics that have for centuries drawn audiences to the opera. Topics that feature prominently in "Heroes and Heroines: Jewish Opera," Volume 16 of the Milken Archive of Jewish Music: The American Experience.
All of the works included herein bear a strong connection to some aspect of the Jewish experience–whether that means a libretto based on an episode from Jewish history, characters that express typically Jewish attitudes, or music that draws e...
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Notes from the American Jewish Experience
September 08, 2010
Dave Brubeck. Leonard Bernstein. Igor Stravinsky. John Zorn.What do these four men have in common, aside from being four of the most famous names in music?If you said, “they're Jewish,” you'd be wrong. (Bernstein and Zorn, yes; Brubeck and Stravinsky, no.)But if you said, “they're all represented in the Milken Archive of Jewish Music: the American Experience,” you'd be right.And thereby hangs a tale.Founded by philanthropist Lowell Milken–chairman and co-founder of the Milken Family Fo...
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100 VOICES: A JOURNEY HOME
August 25, 2010
Jewish and Polish cultures, once interwoven for centuries, reunite for an unprecedented and poignant event of remembrance, healing, resilience and rebirth in 100 Voices: A Journey Home, a compelling and musical film opening in Los Angeles at the AMC Century City and NYC at the Empire 25 on September 22-28, 2010 to qualify for Academy Award consideration.
This qualifying run follows a one night exclusive Fathom event in over 500 theaters nationwide on Tuesday, September 21, at 7:00 pm. To see t...
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