[From Deutschlandradio Kultur]
The Yiddish Summer Weimar has now become a permanent fixture on the international festival calendar. For 15 years, there are four-week learning and Concert Festival – and that’s why is the motto is also “Yiddishkayt [in Yiddish lit.: “Yiddishness and/or Jewishness”] Revisited”.
Lunch break in the Ottmar Gerster Music School in Weimar. The chairs set out in a circle in the auditorium are empty. A man sits at the piano and plays, just for himself. It is Ilya Schneyveys from Riga, professor of Klezmer music. Even as a child he came into contact with the Yiddish language.
“It was the same for my grandfather and my mother. I understand Yiddish because I’ve played a lot of Yiddish music; I haven’t sung so much, but accompanied a lot. I’ve been occupied with Yiddish music for 12 years, or so.”
Since 2006, Ilya has been coming every year to Weimar, to teach and to inform himself about new developments.
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מוזיק אין חורבן | Music in the Holocaust 