Introduction by
Geraldine Auerbach MBE, founding Director of JMI
In the summer of 1984, the first major international festival devoted to Jewish music – anywhere in the world – took place in London UK. It was called the Bnai Brith Music Festival and lasted over 4 weeks. It was filled with choral, vocal and instrumental concerts in London’s major concert halls and other interesting venues. It featured everything from Chasidic music and Jewish jazz, to oratorios, orchestral and chamber music. There were also illustrated talks and Jewish music in situ in synagogue services – including in the oldest Sephardi synagogue in London, Bevis Marks.
This first festival marked the beginning of the trajectory that culminated in the establishment of the Jewish Music Institute at the University of London in 1999. As the founding Director of the festival and of JMI, I realised that Jewish music was like a radioactive cable reaching from the bible to infinity – and that people wanted to be warmed by its glow. I spent the next 30 years of my life, dedicated to making it available to the best of my ability in all its manifestations.
More festivals followed, every two years until 2000. For each festival, all the concerts and events were documented in a single programme book. These are now fascinating historical documents and hugely informative on the scope and reach of Jewish music and the composers and artists involved.
Several works were commissioned, and many old and new works were given first performances in the UK. Special ensembles were brought in from Europe, Israel and America and new ensembles were created in the UK to perform special repertoires. Highlights included music composed by and for the Rothschilds performed at their stately homes and a day of Jewish music in the Millennium Dome.
Working with the Council of Christians and Jews, we presented Ronald Senator’s oratorio, Kaddish for Terezin in Canterbury Cathedral in 1986 with Rabbi Hugo Gryn, who had been an inmate, as narrator, blowing the shofar in the Cathedral – broadcast live on Radio London. Then in 1990 there was Ernest Bloch’s Sacred Service in Hebrew in York Minster as part of a long weekend we organised and presented, commemorating the 800th anniversary of the massacre of the Jews of York.
The Sacred Service was performed again in 1995 at St Paul’s Cathedral under the baton of Yehudi Menuhin in the presence of HRH The Prince Philip. This was part of a special festival called Sacred Music of two Traditions.
Other special festivals were the Austrian Jewish Music Festival of 1996, the World of Jewish Music in 1998 and the last festival A Travelling Festival in 2000.
In the intervening years there were mini festivals at the Southbank Centre and Wigmore Hall such as Thwarted Voices: Music Suppressed by the Third Reich, ‘Continental Britons – The Émigré Composers’, Musical Dialogues of East and West (Israeli Music) and a Tribute after he died, to Yehudi Menuhin, who had been the valued President of JMI.
At last, all these festival programmes, and the programmes of five international conferences on aspects of Jewish music have been digitised – with many thanks to our partners, the Jewish Music Institute in Paris under Herve Roten and Jean-Gabriel Davis for managing the process. Thanks to them, we can have them on the JMI website for all to see – hopefully forever.
Geraldine Auerbach MBE, London, November 2019