Recorded December 20, 2025 Photo: Shendi Copitman
“ So I got an accordion, I put it on my back, and I went to Europe ... “ Do tune in to hear how Alan’s story intertwines music and speech with creativity, compassion, and being Jewish in today’s world. Listen in to hear how the “other” in Other Music Academy is not what you might think and how transcultural work is more about mycelium than bridges.
Alan and I met in the courtyard of Etz Hayyim Synagogue and this episode was recorded in the city of Chania on the island of Crete. It is the first of this 3rd “season” with the tagline of“voices from afar (and not so far).”
Give yourself a treat by checking out Alan's work in Weimar and selected music, linked below.
Projects:
· The Other Music Academy: “…an open and inclusive society which invites the most diverse kinds of people to help actively create our common culture and our roles within it.”
· Yiddish Summer Weimar: “YSW is guided by a four-part mission: to research, teach, create and present traditional and new Yiddish culture in an intercultural context… In recent years, YSW has increasingly focused on creating new Yiddish culture projects with young people and renowned artists.”
Music: short bites
· The Semer Ensemble Trailer: Forgotten music recorded by Jewish artists in Berlin in the 1930s on the Semer Label brought back to life for today by an all-star, 8-person ensemble.
· The Other Europeans Trailer: What happens when 14 musicians from 8 countries join forces to recreate the unique musical synthesis of Jewish and Roma music that once animated all weddings and celebrations in Romania and Moldova?
· The Kadya Girls Choir – Shtern Faln (Stars are Falling): A truly unique project that brought together Jewish, Christian and Muslim girls from Israel and Germany to sing new Yiddish choir songs composed by Alan Bern based on the touching poetry for young people by Polish Jewish poet Kadya Molodovsky.
Music: full feasts
· Glikl Oratorio: A Her-Story: A full-length New Jewish Music oratorio composed in 2023 by Alan Bern, with a libretto by Diana Matut, based on the incredible life story of Glikl of Hameln, a Jewish woman who lived in Hamburg at the turn of the 18th century and left behind candid, fascinating memoires about her life.
· The Kadya Trio: Alan Bern’s new songs based on the poetry of Polish Jewish poet Kadya Molodovsky, arranged for and exquisitely performed by a world-class trio with Sveta Kundish (voice), Mark Kovnatskiy (violin) and Alan Bern (piano,accordion) recorded live in concert at the 33rd Jewish CultureFestival in Krakow, Poland.
· Brave Old World – Reunion!: From 1990 to the mid-2010s, Brave Old World expanded the horizons of New Yiddish Music throughout the world. This online reunion, recorded in 2021 byToronto’s Ashkenaz Festival, looks back on 30 years of unparalleled music making and friendship.
About Alan:
· Wikipedia: “In recognition of his leadership of YSW, Alan Bern was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany … in 2022, the Thuringia Order of Merit in 2017 and the Weimar Prize in 2016.”
References from the interview:
· New Israeli historiography “The New Historians[a] area loosely defined group of Israeli historians who have challenged traditional versions of Israeli history and played a critical role in refuting some of what critics of Israel consider Israel's foundational myths,[1] including Israel's role in the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight and Arab willingness to discuss peace.” While subject to criticism today, their work punctured the myth that Palestinians themselves, along with Arab nations, were responsible for the Nakba. [Wikipedia]
· Martin Buber, I and Thou, 1923, English translations in 1937 (Smith) and 1970 (Kaufman), 36th edition, Charles Scribners, 1970.
