A radio program by the European Institute of Jewish Music, hosted by Hervé Roten
MUSIQUES JUIVES D’HIER ET D’AUJOURD’HUI – December 19, 2017, JUDAÏQUES FM (94.8), 21H05. Radio program in French
Hervé Roten receives the tenor Benjamin Alunni who has just recorded with the pianist Marine Thoreau la Salle and the cellist Lydia Shelley a beautiful album entitled Confluence (s) at Klarthe Records.
Attracted by Jewish music, Benjamin Alunni conceived the program of this double disc around an unreleased or unknown musical repertoire, combining folk and traditional melodies, works of the classical repertoire and contemporary music.
Many composers, Jewish or non-Jewish, were inspired by Judaism and its culture. For some, music is a place of natural expression of their Jewish identity, for others, Jewish music is a source of inspiration. Sung in French, Hebrew, Aramaic or Yiddish, these melodies are due as much to famous composers as to authors, women and men, sometimes forgotten.
From 1914 to 2009, from the Kaddish by Maurice Ravel to the one by Graciane Finzi, passing by Elsa Barraine, Paul Martineau, Manuel Rosenthal or Léon Algazi, this radio program shows us the extraordinary fertility that flowed throughout the 20th century from the meeting of Jewish and French melodies.
Learn more about the CD Confluence(s)
You Tube video on the making and the recording of the CD Confluences
Purchase the CD
Officer of the Ordre of Arts and letters, PhD in musicology at Paris University Sorbonne, prize-winning graduate from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, Hervé Roten is the director of the European Institute of Jewish Music since its creation in 2006.
Ethnomusicologist, he quickly developed an interest in the safeguard and digitization of archives, subjects he taught for several years in Reims and Marne-La-Vallée universities.
Author of many articles, books and recordings related to Jewish music, producer of radio programs, Hervé Roten is recognized today as one of the best specialists of Jewish music in the world.