Charlette Shulamit Ottolenghi: Italia Ebraica

I recently got an email from Italian-Israeli vocalist Charlette Shulamit Ottolenghi, and I'm very glad I did. Ottolenghi is a proud heir of the Italian Jewish musical tradition and recorded a lovely album called "Hebraica Italia" that

"... reproduces melodies drawn from her early childhood religious experience and her study of the magnificent and rare Jewish Italian Liturgy.Traditional Jewish prayers in Hebrew, with the particular melodies that developed during the two thousand years of continuous presence of Jews in Italy."

It's a bit of a romantic conceit to suggest she's singing two thousand year old melodies (texts maybe, melodies no), but that's ok. It's a common one for this kind of album and it doesn't diminish her achievement. Ottolenghi's voice is stately and nuanced, even when it floats over driving mid-eastern drums or electronic burbles. Here's a great example*, where she bounces between Hebrew and Italian on the Passover classic "Who Knows One" ("Chi Sapeva" in Italian, "Echod Mi Yodea" in Hebrew.)

Chi sapeva (Who Knows One)

You can check out other samples from Hebraica on her web page.

(*Personally, while I really enjoyed Ottolenghi's album there were moments I wanted to put a cork in the soprano sax. JUST STOP PLAYING FOR A MINUTE. yesh).

Update: Ottolenghi let me know that while she has the many recorded tracks on the website, she has not released a full album yet. She's working on it and will let us know when she does.

Lisa Paglin & Jewish Music from Ancona, Italy

Hi folks. I got a nice email a couple of days ago from Lisa Paglin of the New Voice Studio Italia that I thought I'd pass along.

"I am writing to you from Ancona, on the Adriatic sea below Venice. Ancona was once an important Jewish center and, sadly, like so many European cities and towns, now has a very small Jewish population. But we do have some interesting cultural activities and one of them is the International Adriatic - Mediterranean Festival which begins on August 30 the (the inauguration was yesterday!) and ends on (and includes) the European Day of Jewish culture, the 7th of September. It is a festival of theatre, cinema, music, poetry and art.

I am a pianist and singer and co-founder of the NewVoice Studio ITALIA. If you would like to look at our website, it is here: www.newvoicestudioitalia.com

I have been dedicated, for several years, to researching, restoring and sometimes re-arranging the music of composers who were persecuted during the 1930s and 1940s, and who were active in the Jewish ghettos. I have performed several concerts of music written by composers deported to concentration and extermination camps under Nazi fascism. I am planning a concert for next January, for Holocaust Memorial Day.

This year the theme of the Day of Jewish culture is "Music and Words," so, in addition to the usual opening up of all of the Jewish museums and Synagogues (with free guided tours for many people who have never been to a synagogue...), we are offering several musical events. The one that i am performing is combined with the presentation of a book ("words"!) entitled "Ricomporre l'Infranto". translated as "Reassembling the broken pieces".

Ancona is fast becoming an important city for Jewish music."

A quick Google check supports what Lisa said. Ancona has supported a couple of klezmer festivals recently as well as the events in her email. That's a wonderful thing. It's really exciting to see the Jewish communities in Europe starting to blossom again. I was in Florence, Italy, earlier this year and was delighted by all of the Jewish music I found happening over there. Check out my previous posts "Cantor Yosef Gottesman, Opera in the Synagogue!," "Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco," "Singing Dew: The Florence-Leghorn Jewish Musical Tradition," and "Enrico Fink - Italian Klezmer and Theater Music."

These posts were written over a couple of days in Florence. If I'd had more time I could have spent a couple of weeks covering Jewish music across Italy. Hmm. Considering the variety and quality of what I found, maybe I should....

Cantor Yosef Gottesman, Opera in the Synagogue!

Whew, I haven't posted since Monday but not for lack of material. I was just out late smoozing with other conference goers and trying to find out if I was in trouble for a little ruckus I caused at one of the conference panels. I told a bunch of emperors they had no clothes. Yikes. I normally keep my little rants to myself or my friends. This time I said it into microphone in front of about 100 people.

Anyway, I'll be heading home tomorrow, so I thought I'd get in one more post about Jewish music in Florence. Today's feature is Cantor Yosef Gottesman. According to his bio, he was born in Florence, educated in England, and attended yeshiva in Israel. He tours regularly and has five albums out and (drum roll please) "His cover version of the title track from the Titanic movie "My Heart Will Go On" sung in Hebrew, is becoming a staple song for Jewish Weddings all across the world."

I don't think I needed to know that there's a Hebrew version of music from the Titanic. Sigh.

Anyway, sappy love songs aside, Cantor Gottesman has fine voice and sings in the operatic cantorial style that once lit up synagogues all over America. Here are a few of his sample tracks that I particularly enjoyed. (yeah, I guess I can get sappy too).


Kevakrath (From Gotteman and Sons)


Tevienu (From Yosef Gottesman sings Carlebach with Sthimme)


And here it is, in all it's smaltzy glory...
Titanic - Eshet Chail (From Opera in the Synagogue)


If your interested in purchasing one of Cantor Gottesman's CD's, you can contact him through his website. He also performs at all sorts of festivals and events. He even does weddings.

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco

Continuing this week's theme of Jewish music from Florence, Italy, today's find is Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (hereafter abbreviated MCT). According to a Milken Archive press release for the recording, Naomi & Ruth / Sacred Service for Sabbath Eve, MCT was "born in Florence to an Italian Sephardi Jewish family with roots in Tuscany dating back 400 years, the composer himself identified three primary inspirations at the core of his musical expression: his Tuscan background, his fascination with Shakespeare, and the Bible--not only its narratives, but the Jewish spiritual and liturgical heritage developed over the centuries." According to his Wikipedia entry, while MCT was born in Florence, he emigrated to the US in 1939 to escape the pre-World War II race laws that had cut short his Italian career. Once in the US he quickly became a successful and influential film and opera composer.

Amazon.com has the CD and plenty of sound samples for Naomi & Ruth / Sacred Service for Sabbath Eve as well as many of his secular compositions including the Tarantella played here by Giulio Tampalini.

GIULIO TAMPALINI - M. Castelnuovo Tedesco: Tarantella

You can find more info about MCT at the Milken Archives biography page and his wikipedia entry.

Singing Dew: The Florence-Leghorn Jewish Musical Tradition

I'm on my second day in Florence, Italy. I did so much walking around today I think I got blisters. Oh well. It's my only day to see the place. I'll be working the rest of the week. Anyway, I'm back in my hotel room, tummy full of Gorgonzola pizza, Campari soda, and pistachio gelato and am ready to get back to Jewish music, Italian style.

Today's find is a lovely recording issued a few years ago by the Feher Jewish Music Center at Beth Hatefutsot, The Nahum Goldmann Museum of the Jewish Diapora, Tel Aviv. The recording presents the Florence Synagogue Choir singing local melodies for "Sabbath, the New Year, the three festivals of pilgrimage (Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles), Simhat Torah (Rejoicing of the Law) and the Ninth of Ab, as well as songs to celebrate weddings and the birth of a son." The Feher website offers a few samples, so give them a listen. I'm particularly enjoy the Lecha Dodi. Most of the melodies I'm familiar with either have a much faster tempo, or start faster and then slow down half way through. I'm not familiar with one that starts so slowly.

Lecha Dodi


Achot Ketana (The Little Sister)


Sheva Berakot


The Feher Music Center has a lot more interesting recordings, check them out.

By the way, there is a big fluff going on in the Jewish music world right now regarding the Feher Jewish Music Center. Yuval Shaked, the former director of the Feher Music Center, was recently fired. Since the Music Center only has one employee, Shaked, this has raised concern by the community that the Music Center is going to be shut down. While I don't really know any of the inside story, I do know that there's a petition circulating to reinstate Shaked. It's in Hebrew, but I was sent a translated copy which reads...

"The Feher Jewish Music Center is severely and acutely endangered by the Management of Beth Hatefutsoth (The Nahum Goldmann Museum of the Jewish Diapora, Tel Aviv). The work of the sole musician at the Museum, Yuval Shaked, current Director of the Feher Jewish Music Center, had been terminated by the Management and will come to its end on March 31, 2008.

Upon his dismissal, the vast recording collection of the Center, the CD series it released and its unique databank – all renowned and acknowledged throughout the world – will be abandoned. The contacts nourished by the FJMC with partner archives and institutions all over the world, its initiatives and intense endeavors on behalf of Jewish music of all kinds, places, times and styles (preservation & documentation) will all be neglected and destroyed. Various projects in progress will be stopped. Hard labor done over many years will get lost.

We therefore appeal to Beth Hatefutsoth's management to nullify its most regrettable and deplorable action, and ensure Mr. Shaked's position and the maintenance of the recording collection and activities of the Feher Jewish Music Center for many years to come"

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.