TSVEY BRIDER AND BAYMELE
In June, we launched the first season of Secret Chord Concerts in partnership with the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History. It is a new series spotlighting top Jewish musicians worldwide today. Episode 4 features a collaborative performance by two groups, Tsvey Brider and Baymele. In various combinations, the two ensembles perform reimagined and stylistically diverse settings of 20th century Yiddish modernist poetry in addition to music of Jewish eastern Europe.
Click here to watch the concert at noon PT on September 7th.
More about the Ensemble:
Tsvey Brider (meaning “two brothers” in Yiddish) is a Yiddish songwriting, arranging and performing duo featuring Anthony Mordecai Tzvi Russell (vocals) and Dmitri Gaskin (piano, accordion). Formed in 2017 after winning the Concurso Internacional de Canciones en Idish (Der Idisher Idol) in Mexico City, Tsvey Brider has gone on to be featured in the Gorki Theatre’s Radikale Jüdisches Kulturtage (Radical Jewish Culture Festival), tour across Poland and perform for culture and music festivals both nationally and interntaionally.
Inspired by the work of an international group of twentieth century Jewish writers and poets, Tsvey Brider is an outfit for the musical exploration of contemporary life in the Yiddish language. This has led the duo to write, arrange and perform in a diverse array of styles and genres including contemporary classical, cabaret, blues and pop in addition to the sounds of Jewish Eastern Europe that have traditionally accompanied music in the Yiddish language.
Baymele (meaning “little tree” in Yiddish) is a klezmer and Eastern European folk trio rooted in the San Francisco Bay Area on unceded Ohlone land. Avid ethnographic researchers, they perform newly rediscovered gems from Ashkenazi, Polish, Romanian, Ukrainian, and Hungarian folk music traditions, alongside original compositions. The trio’s members are Matthew Stein (violin), Misha Khalikulov (cello) and Dmitri Gaskin (accordion).
About the Series:
Secret Chord Concerts is a free on-demand video series featuring 15-25 minute performances from celebrated Jewish musicians representing a broad range of styles, heritages, and histories and recorded live in front of intimate audiences in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. Season 1 episodes will air the first Wednesday of every month from June until November (skipping October).
A cross-country partnership between the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History (The Weitzman) on historic Independence Mall in Philadelphia, and the Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music (Lowell Milken Center) in Los Angeles, generated this new online offering. Both presenting organizations are committed to inspiring in people of all backgrounds a greater appreciation for the diversity of the American Jewish experience. This season’s episodes were filmed at The Weitzman, against the striking backdrop of Independence Hall, and in UCLA’s beautiful recording studio.
This program is produced and presented by the Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music in partnership with the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History.