Enrico Fink - Italian Klezmer and Theater Music

"Picture yourself with hundreds of Austrian music lovers expecting a learned performance of Renaissance music and finding themselves cheering a joker singing a folksong in Ferrarese dialect..."

Ensemble Lucidarium's "Had Gadya


I haven't slept in a day or so. I'm currently in Florence, Italy on at an academic conference. Not about Jewish music, sadly. It's about Human Computer Interaction, my day job. But, while I'm hear, I'm planning on studying up on Italian Jewish music as best I can.

One of the first interesting Italian Jewish musicians I've come across is Enrico Fink. According to his bio, Fink "has devoted himself to new interpretations of the Jewish cultural tradition, finding a path between "radical" and traditional, which uses both music and musical theater as means of expression." Fink's played with the early music group Ensemble Lcidarium, the Klezmer group Lokshen, written theater music, given lectures on Jewish music, and put out bunch of CD's.

In addition to the very timely "Had Gadya," Fink's MySpace page has a number of lingering, jazz-inflected soundscapes. Just lovely. His website is also filled with interesting mini-essays on Italian Jewish music. Well worth the read and listen. He's got two albums available on eMusic which I'll be scooping up as soon as I get back to the states.