Di Naye Kapelye (H/USA)
Di Naye Kapelye plays old time Jewish music the way we imagine it was played in eastern Europe both before and after the Holocaust. Learning from Jewish people still living in the region, and from Gypsy musicians who played for them, DNK carries on a living tradition of music.
Formed in 1994 through a number of fortuitous circumstances, many involving liberal quantities of palinka -Hungarian plum brandy - at marathon Hungarian folk dances, founding member Bob Cohen assembled an international group of musicians devoted to digging for the roots of Yiddish music in the Carpathian region.
A Naye Kapelye concert is a tour of the places, moods, emotions, tastes and smells of a Jewish celebration. It brings you to the rabbi's table, it speaks of forbidden dancing with Moldavian "sharletankes", it speaks of whiskey and the misery of life in the Russian army.
Cohen himself began collecting Jewish music in Hungary and Romania in the 1980s as an extension of his involvement in the Hungarian tanchaz or "dance house" movement. Based on field recordings, interviews, and historic recordings, Di Naye Kapelye recreates the sound of the many non-commercial Jewish bands who served Jewish communities in Europe as late as the 1970s. In Hungary, and particularly in Transylvania, Gyspies commonly played music for Jewish communities, and members of Di Naye Kapelye continue to do extensive field research among elderly Gypsy and Jewish musicians, recording and often playing with their teachers, carrying this living tradition into the 21st century.
Band members
Bob Cohen: violin, vocal, mandolin
Christina Crowder: accordeon
Ferenc Pribojszki: cimbalom
Gyula Kozma: double bass
Antal Fekete: kontra
Discography
Aleph, 1995
Di Naye Kapelye, 1998
A Mazeldiker Yid, 2001
Formed in 1994 through a number of fortuitous circumstances, many involving liberal quantities of palinka -Hungarian plum brandy - at marathon Hungarian folk dances, founding member Bob Cohen assembled an international group of musicians devoted to digging for the roots of Yiddish music in the Carpathian region.
A Naye Kapelye concert is a tour of the places, moods, emotions, tastes and smells of a Jewish celebration. It brings you to the rabbi's table, it speaks of forbidden dancing with Moldavian "sharletankes", it speaks of whiskey and the misery of life in the Russian army.
Cohen himself began collecting Jewish music in Hungary and Romania in the 1980s as an extension of his involvement in the Hungarian tanchaz or "dance house" movement. Based on field recordings, interviews, and historic recordings, Di Naye Kapelye recreates the sound of the many non-commercial Jewish bands who served Jewish communities in Europe as late as the 1970s. In Hungary, and particularly in Transylvania, Gyspies commonly played music for Jewish communities, and members of Di Naye Kapelye continue to do extensive field research among elderly Gypsy and Jewish musicians, recording and often playing with their teachers, carrying this living tradition into the 21st century.
Band members
Bob Cohen: violin, vocal, mandolin
Christina Crowder: accordeon
Ferenc Pribojszki: cimbalom
Gyula Kozma: double bass
Antal Fekete: kontra
Discography
Aleph, 1995
Di Naye Kapelye, 1998
A Mazeldiker Yid, 2001