Exploring the Max and Frieda Weinstein Archive of YIVO Sound Recordings with Lorin Sklamberg

Join  YIVO Sound Archivist Lorin Sklamberg for an online look at the holdings  of one of the world’s largest repositories of audio materials  pertaining  to the Ashkenazic experience. This talk will feature examples from the  dawn of the commercial recording industry and forward: cantorial music,  theater songs, comedy routines, Yiddish radio and, of course, klezmer.  In addition to presenting a virtual exhibition  of one-of-a-kind artifacts (piano rolls, vintage shellac discs, vinyl  lps, magnetic tape, period artwork), the talk will give insight into  YIVO’s online collections of field recordings of Yiddish songs contained  on its Ruth Rubin Legacy website and the newly  digitized Yiddish Folksong Project.

Lorin Sklamberg is  a founding member of the Grammy Award-winning Yiddish-American roots  band the Klezmatics. He also teaches Yiddish song from São Paulo to St.  Petersburg. His newest project focuses on newly discovered Yiddish  cabaret songs from Helsinki. Other recent work includes 150  Voices,  a recorded collaboration with singer/instrumentalist Polina Shepherd  and the members of five choirs in the UK and the United States. Since  2000,  Sklamberg has served as the sound archivist of New York’s YIVO  Institute for Jewish Research, for whom he has co-curated the Ruth Rubin  Legacy website featuring field recordings of the renowned folklorist’s  collection of some 3,000 Yiddish folk songs.