Concert: Ashkenazi Deconstruction

On May 3, 2023, Grigory Sandomirsky’s Ashkenazi Deconstruction Ensemble performed a concert at the Beit Avi Hai Cultural Center in Jerusalem. The ensemble includes the singer Evdokia Lerer and the musicians Andrey Bessonov, Asaf Shchori and Chagay Fertman. The band performed such well known Yiddish songs as Avrom Goldfaden’s “Unter yideles vigele“, Mark Varshavsky’s “Afn pripetshik“, Itzik Manger’s “Afn veg shteyt a boym” and Joseph Kotlyar’s “A lidele af yidish“, which are considered a part of Yiddish folkloric tradition. However, the performers offered a completely new musical interpretation, sharply different from both traditional klezmer music and typical pop music.

As an unexpected touching surprise, the concert was concluded with a Sephardic folk version of the famous Passover song Chad Gadya in Ladino. An important part of the performance was its visual background: an animation created by Ilya Kreynes and Maya Adar Walling based on Anatoli Kaplan’s works. Kaplan was an artist particularly famous for his illustrations of Sholem Aleichem’s works. The Yiddish literature researcher Dr. Yaad Biran, also known as a Hebrew and Yiddish writer, wrote the text that was recited at the event.