music

What has Charlie Parker’s classic bebop tune ‘Anthropology’ got to do with George Gershwin? What was the role of Jewish composers in establishing the great American Song Book and how did this establish mainstream jazz standards? How does the Freygish scale found in klezmer music relate to the Phyrgian dominant mode used in minor 2-5-1 … Continue reading Jews and Jazz: a melting pot of identities

Yoav Ben-Shlomo • Bristol Ernest Bloch, though not a religious Jew, is probably the most famous Jewish composer of the twentieth century. Born in Geneva in 1880, he studied in Brussels, Frankfurt, Munich and Paris before creating his “Jewish cycle” and ended his life in the USA. However, he also composed other important musical works including … Continue reading Ernest Bloch: more than a Jewish composer