The Cantorial “Golden Age” in America
|
Lecture
This event forms part of Carnegie Hall’s festival United in Sound: America at 250. Admission: Free Registration is required. |
In this lecture demonstration, scholar-musician Jeremiah Lockwood discusses some of the major stars of the cantorial “golden age” and takes a deeper look at the emergence of khazones (the Yiddish word for cantorial music) as a form of popular culture in the US in the early 20th century. Taking over from Europe as the center point of cantorial culture after World War I, cantors in America were major stars of radio, concert, Yiddish theater, and even the emerging sound film industry. Alongside the popularity of cantors as artists and public representatives of Jewish culture there developed a discourse of critique of cantors and their populist art, sometimes referred to as hefker khazones (cantorial music of abandonment) by critics. This lecture will explore the phenomenon of cantorial music as popular culture and will include samples of historic recordings of American cantors of the Jewish immigrant era.
Buy Golden Ages: Hasidic Singers and Cantorial Revival in the Digital Era by Jeremiah Lockwood.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.
About the Speaker
Jeremiah Lockwood is a scholar and musician, working in the fields of Jewish studies, performance studies, and ethnomusicology. He is the founder of the band, The Sway Machinery, and is currently a Fellow at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at UPenn. His work engages with issues arising from peering into the archive and imagining the power of “lost” forms of expression to articulate keenly felt needs in the present. His book Golden Ages: Hasidic Singers and Cantorial Revival in the Digital Era was published by University of California Press in 2024.