- Library Home
- LibGuides
- Website
- Presser Music Library
- MHL 420/620 Jewish Music Around the Globe
Presser Music Library
Resources for You
- Oxford Music Online This link opens in a new window
- Garland Encyclopedia of World Music This link opens in a new window
- Jewish Life in America This link opens in a new window
The Cambridge Dictionary of Judaism and Jewish Culture by ISBN: 1316153010
Encyclopedia of World Folk Dance by ISBN: 1442257490
Concise Encyclopedia of Jewish Music by Call Number: 781.76 N969ISBN: 0070475466Publication Date: 1975-01-01Please note: this is a hardcopy, not an e-book. Please come to Presser to check it out.
We've got hundreds of e-books about Jewish music. Click this link to see the full list
- When you have the results list, use the filters on the left or add additional keywords (klezmer, diaspora, popular music, etc.) to the search box at the top of the page to find more specific resources.
Here's a sample of what you'll find:
New York Noise: Radical Jewish Music and the Downtown Scene by
An up-close view of the 1990s music scene that brought us neo-klezmer bands, Tzadik Records, and a new vision of Jewish identity.Coined in 1992 by composer/saxophonist John Zorn, "Radical Jewish Culture," or RJC, became the banner under which many artists in Zorn's circle performed, produced, and circulated their music. New York's downtown music scene, part of the once-grungy Lower East Side, has long been the site of cultural innovation, and it is within this environment that Zorn and his circle sought to combine, as a form of social and cultural critique, the unconventional, uncategorizable nature of downtown music with sounds that were recognizably Jewish.Out of this movement arose bands, like Hasidic New Wave and Hanukkah Bush, whose eclectic styles encompassed neo-klezmer, hardcore and acid rock, neo-Yiddish cabaret, free verse, free jazz, and electronica. Though relatively fleeting in rock history, the "RJC moment" produced a six-year burst of conversations, writing, and music--including festivals, international concerts, and nearly two hundred new recordings. During a decade of research, Tamar Barzel became a frequent visitor at clubs, post-club hangouts, musicians' dining rooms, coffee shops, and archives. Her book describes the way RJC forged a new vision of Jewish identity in the contemporary world, one that sought to restore the bond between past and present, to interrogate the limits of racial and gender categories, and to display the tensions between secularism and observance, traditional values and contemporary concerns.Includes links to audiovisual content
ISBN: 0253015642Publication Date: 2015-01-30
Klezmer's Afterlife: an ethnography of the Jewish music revival in Poland and Germany by
Klezmer in Europe has been a controversial topic ever since this traditional Jewish wedding music made it to the concert halls and discos of Berlin, Warsaw, Budapest and Prague. Played mostly by non-Jews and for non-Jews, it was hailed as "fakelore," "Jewish Disneyland" and even "cultural necrophilia." Klezmer's Afterlife is the first book to investigate this fascinating music scene in Central Europe, giving voice to the musicians, producers and consumers of the resuscitated klezmer. Contesting common hypotheses about the klezmer revival in Germany and Poland stemming merely from feelings of guilt which emerged in the years following the Holocaust, author Magdalena Waligorska investigates the consequences of the klezmer boom on the people who staged it and places where it occurred. Offering not only a documentation of the klezmer revival in two of its European headquarters (Kraków and Berlin), but also an analysis of the Jewish / non-Jewish encounter it generates, Waligorska demonstrates how the klezmer revival replicates and reinvents the image of the Jew in Polish and German popular culture, how it becomes a soundtrack to Holocaust commemoration and how it is used as a shining example of successful cultural policy by local officials. Drawing on a variety of fields including musicology, ethnomusicology, history, sociology, and cultural studies, Klezmer's Afterlife will appeal to a wide range scholars and students studying Jewish culture, and cultural relations in post-Holocaust central Europe, as well as general readers interested in klezmer music and music revivals more generally.
ISBN: 9780199314744Publication Date: 2013-10-01
A Season of Singing: Creating Feminist Jewish Music in the United States by
In the 1960s, Jewish music in America began to evolve. Traditional liturgical tunes developed into a blend of secular and sacred sound that became known in the 1980s as "American Nusach." Chief among these developments was the growth of feminist Jewish songwriting. In this lively study, Sarah M. Ross brings together scholarship on Jewish liturgy, U.S. history, and musical ethnology to describe the multiple roots and development of feminist Jewish music in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Focusing on the work of prolific songwriters such as Debbie Friedman, Rabbi Geela Rayzel Raphael, Rabbi Hanna Tiferet Siegel, and Linda Hirschhorn, this volume illuminates the biographies and oeuvres of innovators in the field, and shows how this new musical form arose from the rich contexts of feminism, identity politics, folk music, and Judaism. In addition to providing deep content analysis of individual songs, Ross examines the feminist Jewish music scene across the United States, the reception of this music, challenges to disseminating the music beyond informal settings, and the state of Jewish music publishing. Rounding out the picture of the transformation of Jewish music, the volume contains appendixes of songs and songwriters a selection of musical transcriptions of feminist Jewish songs, and a comprehensive discography. This book will interest scholars and students in the fields of American Jewish history, women's studies, feminism, ethnomusicology, and contemporary popular and folk music.
ISBN: 1611689619Publication Date: 2016-08-16
Mazal tov, amigos! : Jews and popular music in the Americas by
Winner of the Jewish Music Special Interest Group Paper Prize of 2018 Mazal Tov, Amigos! Jews and Popular Music in the Americas seeks to explore the sphere of Jews and Jewishness in the popular music arena in the Americas. It offers a wide-ranging review of new and old trends from an interdisciplinary standpoint, including history, musicology, ethnomusicology, ethnic studies, cultural studies, and even Queer studies. The contribution of Jews to the development of the music industry in the United States, Argentina, or Brazil cannot be measured on a single scale. Hence, these essays seek to explore the sphere of Jews and popular music in the Americas and their multiple significances, celebrating the contribution of Jewish musicians and Jewishness to the development of new musical genres and ideas.
ISBN: 9004204776
We've got dozens of books about Jewish music in Presser. Click this link to see the full list.
- When you have the results list, use the filters on the left or add additional keywords (klezmer, diaspora, popular music, etc.) to the search box at the top of the page to find more specific resources
Here's a sample of what you'll find:
The Cambridge Companion to Jewish Music by
The term 'Jewish music' has conveyed complex and diverse meanings for people around the world across hundreds of years. This accessible and comprehensive Companion is a key resource for students, scholars, and everyone with an interest in the global history of Jewish music. Leading international experts introduce the broad range of genres found in Jewish music from the biblical era to the present day, including classical, religious, folk, popular, and dance music. Presenting a range of fresh perspectives on the subject, the chapters explore Jewish liturgy, Klezmer, music in Israel, the music of Yiddish theatre and cinema, and classical music from the Jewish Enlightenment through to the postmodern era. Additional contributions set Jewish music in context and offer an overview of the broader issues that arise in its study, such as questions of Diaspora, ontology, economics, and the history of sound technologies.
Call Number: 780.8992 C178ISBN: 9781107023451Publication Date: 2015-11-19
The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Music Studies by
The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Music Studies is the most comprehensive and expansive critical handbook of Jewish music published to date. It is the first endeavor to address the diverse range of sounds, texts, archives, traditions, histories, geographic and political contexts, and critical discourses in the field. The thirty-one experts from thirteen countries who prepared the thirty original and groundbreaking chapters in this handbook are leaders in the disciplines of musicology and Jewish studies as well as adjacent fields. Chapters in the handbook provide a broad coverage of the subject area with considerable expansion of the topics that are normally covered in a resource of this type. Designed around eight distinct sections -- Land, City, Ghetto, Stage, Sacred and Ritual Spaces, Destruction / Remembrance, and Spirit -- the range and scope of The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Music Studies most significantly suggests a new framework for the study of Jewish music centered on spatiality and taking into consideration temporality and collectivity. Within each chapter, authors have selected what they consider to be the most important material relevant to their topic and, drawing on the most authoritative insights from historical and ethnomusicology, Jewish studies, history, anthropology, philology, religious studies, and the visual arts, have taken a genuinely inter- or transdisciplinary approach. Integrated chapter bibliographies provide material for further reading. Together the chapters form a first truly global look at Jewish music, incorporating studies from Central and East Asia, Europe, Australia, the Americas, and the Arab world. Together they span world history, from antiquity until the present day. As such, the Handbook provides a resource that researchers, scholars, and educators will use as the most important and authoritative overview of work within music and Jewish studies.
Call Number: 780.8992 O98ISBN: 9780197528624Publication Date: 2023-11-28
Discovering Jewish Music by
Most of us have experienced "Jewish music," whether it's through synagogue attendance, a bar mitzvah celebration, a klezmer concert, or the playing of "Hava Nagila" at a baseball game. The many different kinds of Jewish music are reflected by the multitude of Jewish communities throughout the world, each having its own unique set of experiences and values. This book puts the music into a context of Jewish history, philosophy, and sociology. Edelman begins 3,000 years ago, with a discussion of music in the Bible, and then examines the nature of folk and liturgical music in the three major Diaspora communities that evolved over centuries, after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. From there she explores music of the 20th century, including the explosion of popular music in North America and Israel and its impact on Jews and their musical identities.
Call Number: 780.8992 E21ISBN: 780.8992 E219780827608573Publication Date: 2007-03-01
Bloch, Schoenberg, and Bernstein by
David Schiller's study of the Jewish music of Bloch, Schoenberg, and Bernstein reveals how, in the mid-twentieth century, the problem of assimilation was acutely felt as the unfinished business of European Jewry, at a time when American Jewry was creating its own distinctive culture (albeit with European roots). This incisive study sheds new light on an important aspect of the cultural and aesthetic achievements of these seminal Jewish composers.
Call Number: 780.9239 S334ISBN: 0198167113Publication Date: 2003-05-22
Jews, Race and Popular Music by
Jon Stratton provides a pioneering work on Jews as a racialized group in the popular music of America, Britain and Australia during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Rather than taking a narrative, historical approach the book consists of a number of case studies, looking at the American, British and Australian music industries. Stratton's primary motivation is to uncover how the racialized positioning of Jews, which was sometimes similar but often different in each of the societies under consideration, affected the kinds of music with which Jews have become involved. Stratton explores race as a cultural construction and continues discussions undertaken in Jewish Studies concerning the racialization of the Jews and the stereotyping of Jews in order to present an in-depth and critical understanding of Jews, race and popular music.
Call Number: 781.6408 S911ISBN: 9780754668046Publication Date: 2016-03-22
- Library SearchThe main search box for the WCU libraries. Journal articles, videos, streaming audio, books, scores, etc. If we have it, it will show up here.
- RILM Abstracts of Music Literature This link opens in a new windowIndex of journal articles, books, and other resources in music. Larger scope than library search, which means it will show you things we may not have - but you can get through interlibrary loan.
- WorldCat This link opens in a new windowCatalog of thousands of libraries from across the country and world, great for seeing what's available - best of all, you can request whatever you find through interlibrary loan.
- Contemporary World Music This link opens in a new windowStreaming music, includes a blend of contemporary and traditional music recordings from labels across the world.
- Naxos Music Library This link opens in a new windowStreaming audio, including Classical music, Jazz, World, Folk and Chinese music. Search for Jewish music and you'll find about 250 recordings.
- Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries This link opens in a new windowVirtual encyclopedia of the world's musical and aural traditions from Folkways Records' founder Moses Asch.
Can be cross-searched with other Alexander Street music databases in Music Online
(Alexander Street Press)
- Jewish Music Resource CentreThe Jewish Music Research Centre (JMRC) is dedicated to the documentation, research and publication of scholarly materials about music conceived, performed and consumed by Jewish societies in the past and present. Includes Jewish Music Mapped, an interactive tool for discovering Jewish music across time and places.
- Global JukeboxWonderful interactive website allowing you to find music and music cultures from around the world.
Highly recommended! Concept or mind mapping is a great way to organize and conduct your research.
I use an online tool called Miro, but you can do this on paper, or in Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. It's easier, though, to use Miro because it allows for unlimited space and you can cut and paste citations and links to resources.
Here's a video I made for another class demonstrating Miro, so the topic of the research doesn't really apply to you, but the technique is the same.