Celia Dropkin: Bent Like a Question Mark
|
A work-in-progress concert by Book of J
Supported by New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Admission: Free |
Although Yiddish poet Celia Dropkin first published around 100 years ago, she wrote about desire and violence in a way that feels shockingly contemporary, and is currently receiving renewed interest from contemporary artists, musicians, as well as queer performers and theorists. Book of J (Jewlia Eisenberg and Jeremiah Lockwood) are artists-in-residence at YIVO in July working with Celia Dropkin’s archive, setting to music material they have uncovered at YIVO. This is an open-archive residency, where everything from research to brainstorming to listening to composing to rehearsing to sharing their work happens on site at YIVO. Join us for a work-in-progress concert presentation of the music created during their residency. To follow the work of their residency visit www.BookOfJ.com.
About the Performers
Book of J is Jewlia Eisenberg and Jeremiah Lockwood. According to The New Yorker, Book of J is “an affecting duo with an expansive musical landscape encompassing gothic Yiddish songs, Piedmont blues, and queer politics. Both musicians have deep roots in Jewish music: Lockwood grew up singing in the High Holidays choir of his grandfather, a renowned cantor, while Eisenberg continues to lead the experimental, politically-minded Jewish vocal group Charming Hostess.” And the SF Chronicle describes Book of J as “weird in all the best ways.”
Jewlia Eisenberg is a musician and composer working at the intersection of voice, text and diaspora consciousness. Her music is mostly released with John Zorn's Tzadik label on the Radical Jewish Culture imprint. Her installation work has been curated into the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco and the Museum of Peace in Uzbekistan; she performs regularly in Europe and the Americas. She has been a visiting artist at CalArts, MIT, the University of Chicago and the University of Colorado.
Jeremiah Lockwood has played around the world from Montreal Jazz to the Festival au Desert in Timbuktu, Mali, as the leader of The Sway Machinery and as the guitarist in the Balkan Beat Box. Jeremiah was a recipient of a Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists, an Artist-in-Residence for the Forward and a Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra Composer Fellow. He is currently completing a PhD on Khasidic cantorial music at Stanford University.
