Michael Alpert
{{Short description|American klezmer musician and educator (born 1954)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2020}}
{{Infobox musical artist
| image = Michael Alpert 2016.jpg
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| caption = Alpert in 2016
| birth_name = Michael Alpert
| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1954}}
| birth_place = Los Angeles, California, U.S.
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| genre = Klezmer
| occupation = Musician, singer, scholar
| instrument = Guitar, violin, accordion, percussion, vocals
| years_active = 1970s–present
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Michael Alpert (born 1954, Los Angeles, California){{cite web|url=https://arts.gov/honors/heritage/michael-alpert|title=Michael Alpert: Yiddish Musician and Tradition Bearer |author= |date=n.d. |website=Arts.gov |publisher=National Endowment for the Arts |language=en |access-date=April 21, 2025}} is a klezmer musician and Yiddish singer, multi-instrumentalist and educator.{{cite web |author= |date=n.d. |title=Biography |url=http://www.michaelalpert.net/index.php?page=biography |website=michaelalpert.net |access-date=April 21, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041212083403/http://www.michaelalpert.net/index.php?page=biography |archive-date=December 12, 2004 |url-status=dead}} Ethnomusicologist Mark Slobin referred to him as "a key figure in the modern klezmer revitalization".{{cite book |last=Slobin |first=Mark |year=2000 |title=Fiddler on the Move: Exploring the Klezmer World |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xdkOA9Ed7H4C&q=%22michael+alpert%22 |series=American Musicspheres|location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=30 |isbn=978-0195131246|author-link=Mark Slobin}} He is a recipient of the 2015 National Heritage Fellowship, awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, a lifetime honor presented to master folk and traditional artists in the United States.{{cite web |author= |title=NEA National Heritage Fellowships 2015 |url=https://www.arts.gov/honors/heritage/year/2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200928045835/https://www.arts.gov/honors/heritage/year/2015 |archive-date=September 28, 2020 |access-date=February 7, 2021 |website=www.arts.gov |publisher=National Endowment for the Arts}}
Career
As a teenager in the early 1970's, Alpert lived in Yugoslavia, researching traditional music and dance and learning the languages of the western Balkans, particularly the former Serbo-Croatian and Macedonian.{{Citation needed|date=July 2023}}
Alpert has performed solo and in a number of ensembles since the 1970s,{{cite web |title=Brave Old World: Home of the Braves |url=http://www.braveoldworld.com/english/bios.php |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110107091024/http://www.braveoldworld.com/english/bios.php |archivedate=2011-01-07 |access-date=16 October 2017}} including Brave Old World, Kapelye, Khevrisa, The Brothers Nazaroff, Voices of Ashkenaz and The An-Sky Ensemble,{{cite web|url=http://www.ctmd.org/anskyensemble.htm|title=The An-Sky Ensemble|publisher=Center for Traditional Music and Dance|year=2014|accessdate=6 June 2018}}{{Dead link|date=April 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} and has collaborated with clarinetist David Krakauer, hip-hop artist Socalled, singer/songwriter/actor Daniel Kahn, bandurist Julian Kytasty, violinist Itzhak Perlman, ethnomusicologist and musician Walter Zev Feldman, trumpeter/composer Frank London and numerous others.
As former research associate at New York's YIVO Institute for Jewish Research,{{Cite web |title=Vocals and Violin: Michael Alpert |url=https://www.sfsymphony.org/Data/Event-Data/Artists/A/Alpert,-Michael |access-date=2025-04-10 |website=San Francisco Symphony}} Alpert has worked on documentation of traditional Jewish music and Yiddish dance. He has also organized workshops on restoring Yiddish dance.{{cite web |last=Gelfand |first=Alexander |date=February 20, 2008 |title=Symposium Seeks To Save Yiddish Dance |url=http://forward.com/articles/12714/symposium-seeks-to-save-yiddish-dance/ |access-date=16 October 2017 |website=forward.com |publisher=The Forward Association}}
In addition to performance and teaching, Alpert has travelled throughout Eastern Europe, the Americas, Australia, Israel and Palestine conducting ethnographic research and documentation of Jewish and other traditional musicians and singers. His audio and video fieldwork archive of over 1,000 hours of interviews and field recordings was acquired by the American Folklife Center of the U.S. Library of Congress, and his scholarly publications include articles in:
- American Klezmer: Its Roots and Offshoots (University of California Press, 2002, ed. Mark Slobin) on Warsaw-born klezmer drummer Ben Bazyler (1922-1990),
- Jewish Instrumental Folk Music: The Collections and Writings of Moshe Beregovski (Moisei Beregovsky), translated and edited by Alpert, Mark Slobin and Robert Rothstein (Syracuse University Press, 2001)
Alpert can be credited{{By whom|date=April 2025}} with initiating the revival of rhythmic and harmonic sekund violin playing in klezmer music, a key technique and voice in traditional European klezmer ensembles that had fallen out of use prior to the klezmer revitalization.{{cite web |url=http://www.dinayekapelye.com/jmfiddle.htm |title=Jewish Fiddle |last=Cohen |first=Bob |date=2009 |website=www.dinayekapelye.com |access-date=16 October 2017}} He was among the first figures of the klezmer and Yiddish culture revitalization to reintroduce, perform and teach the traditional solo a capella style of Yiddish folksong and folksinging worldwide.
Alpert was musical director of the 1995 PBS Great Performances special Itzhak Perlman: In the Fiddler's House (1996 Emmy Award for Outstanding Cultural Music-Dance Program and Golden Rose (Montreux) for same) and co-producer of the two Perlman klezmer CDs on the Angel Records/EMI label.{{cite web |author1=Jon Pareles |author1-link=Jon Pareles |title=MUSIC REVIEW;A Classicist Romps In a Revival Of Klezmer |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/07/04/arts/music-review-a-classicist-romps-in-a-revival-of-klezmer.html |website=The New York Times |access-date=21 July 2021 |date=4 July 1996}}
As of 2023, Alpert continues to teach and perform worldwide from his home in Scotland as a soloist and in various collaborations, including duos with Scottish fiddler Gica Loening and American fiddler Craig Judelman.{{cite web| publisher=Scottish Council of Jewish Communities| title=Jewish music, learning, and food in St Andrews| date=February 21, 2016| url=https://scojec.org/news/2016/16ii_st_andrews/klezmer.html| accessdate=2022-06-15}}{{cite web|url=http://centrum.org/2017/07/july-8-fiddle-tunes-finale/|title=July 8 [2017]: Fiddle Tunes Finale|publisher=Centrum|date=July 5, 2017|accessdate=6 June 2018}}
Discography
- Night Songs from a Neighboring Village (2014) with Julian Kytasty (Oriente Musik)
- In Der Heym (2023) with Craig Judelman (Borscht Beat){{cite web |last1=Grisar |first1=PJ |title=A new album blends klezmer and American folk — and is at home in both |url=https://forward.com/culture/541949/klezmer-album-craig-judelman-michael-alpert-yiddish/ |website=Forward |access-date=20 July 2023 |date=20 July 2023}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{allmusic|artist/michael-alpert-mn0000884672}}
- {{Discogs artist}}
- [http://www.mastersoftraditionalarts.org/artists/404 Michael Alpert] 2015 article, bibliography, discography, and filmography, at Masters of Traditional Arts of Documentary Arts
- [http://www.berkshireweb.com/rogovoy/interviews/klez.html Interviews] with some klezmer revivalists including Alpert
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Category:Jewish American musicians
Category:National Heritage Fellowship winners
Category:Musicians from Los Angeles