Download Report

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Motl Didner
mdidner@nytf.org
Phone: (212) 213 – 2120 x211
December 8, 2014
National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene
presents
From Rosenfeld to Robeson
Starring Elmore James and Zalmen Mlotek
Thursday March 19, 2015 at 7:30 PM
Temple Beth El, 350 Roxbury Rd, Stamford, CT
This concert is presented free of charge to the community by the Holocaust
Memorial Committee and the UJF Levy Romanowitz fund, as a tribute to Hesh
Romanowitz z''l.
ADL, Chavurat Aytz Chayim, Congregation Agudath Sholom, Jewish Historical
Society, Selah, Temple Beth El, Temple Sinai, UJA/ JCC Greenwich,UJF, Union
Baptist Church and Young Israel are co-sponsors.
(New York, NY)— Now in its 100th Season, National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene
[NYTF] brings a dynamic new concert to Temple Beth El of Stamford, CT.
From Rosenfeld to Robeson debuted this summer at the Singer festival in
Warsaw, Poland. Broadway and international opera star, Elmore James and
Zalmen Mlotek, Artistic Director of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene take
you on a musical journey through the repertoire of both Morris Rosenfeld, the
famous Yiddish poet of the Lower East Side sweatshops, and Paul Robeson, the
great African American singer, actor and civil rights activist.
Together, they explore the pathos inherent in love ballads, songs of the sweatshop
and slavery, melodies of spirituality, protest and hope. This new concert breathes
fresh life into its interpretations of classics Yiddish songs, songs of revolutionary
poets, Holocaust era partisans and Broadway favorites.
IMAGINATION ● INSPIRATION ● INNOVATION
90 John Street ● Suite 410 ● New York, NY 10038
Phone 212-213-2120 ● Fax 212-213-2186 ● www.nationalyiddishtheatre.org
ELMORE JAMES - is a veteran of five Broadway Shows. He sings in nine
languages and first sang in Yiddish at Town Hall’s, Yiddish in America, a Gala
Concert Celebrating the Centennial of the Workman’s Circle in New York City
Elmore James co-starred in the last show to perform at the Harold Clurman theatre
on Theatre Row, Hip, Heymish and Hot, the whimsical Yiddish/Jazz concert with
Eleanor Reissa. As one of Broadway’s most versatile artists, Mr. James’ operatic
performances include appearances at the Metropolitan Opera House, Carnegie
Hall, Avery Fisher Hall and the opera houses in Paris, Vienna, Munich, Berlin,
Rome, Verona, Sicily, Sweden and Norway.
ZALMEN MLOTEK is the Artistic Director of The National Yiddish Theatreand is an internationally recognized authority on Yiddish folk and theatre music .
Mr. Mlotek brought Yiddish-Klezmer music to Broadway and off-Broadway
stages. His shows , Those Were the Days, The Golden Land, and On SEond Avenue
have received Tony nominations, Drama desk awards and nominations. He has
helped Michael Tilson Thomas, Mandy Patinkin in their research and work and has
produced numerous CDs , including Ghetto Tango with
Adrienne Cooper z’l. He has served as music director for theatrical productions at
the Williamstown Theater Festival, the Great Lakes Theater Festival, the
Westchester Light Opera, the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, the
American Musical Theater Festival in Philadelphia and the American Conservatory
Theater in San Francisco. Zalmen, Bryna and the staff of the NYT-F are busy at
work planning the historical Festival of Jewish Performing Arts in New York
which will take place in June 2015 to celebrate the Folksbiene’s centennial year.
PAUL ROBESON (1898 – 1976) was an American singer and actor who
became involved with the Civil Rights Movement. At Rutgers University, he was
an outstanding football player, then had an international career in singing, as well
as acting in theater and movies. He became politically involved in response to the
Spanish Civil War, fascism, and social injustices. His advocacy of antiimperialism, affiliation with communism, and criticism of the United States
government caused him to be blacklisted during the McCarthy era. In the 1940’s
his anti-fascist activism led to friendships with the Soviet Yiddish poet Itzik Feffer
and theater director Solomon Mikhoels. Robeson added many Yiddish songs to his
repetoire as the result of this relationship.
MORRIS ROSENFELD (1862 – 1923) was a Yiddish poet born in Stare
Boksze, Poland. His work sheds light on the living circumstances of emigrants
from Eastern Europe in New York's sweatshops. He worked as a tailor in New
York and London and as a diamond cutter in Amsterdam, and settled in New York
in 1886, after which he was connected with the editorial staffs of several leading
Jewish newspapers. In 1904 he published a weekly entitled Der Ashmedai. In 1905
he was editor of the New Yorker Morgenblatt. He was also the publisher and editor
of a quarterly journal of literature (printed in Yiddish) entitled Jewish Annals. He
was a delegate to the Fourth Zionist Congress at London, and gave readings at
Harvard University, the University of Chicago, Wellesley and Radcliffe colleges.
American novelist Upton Sinclair referred to Morris Rosenfeld as “The true voice
of the sweatshop worker.”
For more information about The National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene visit
www.nytf.org.
###
IMAGINATION ● INSPIRATION ● INNOVATION
90 John Street ● Suite 410 ● New York, NY 10038
Phone 212-213-2120 ● Fax 212-213-2186 ● www.nationalyiddishtheatre.org