Shōmyō, a form of Japanese Buddhist liturgical chant, and Torah cantillation, the system of chants used to read the Torah in Judaism, are completely unrelated in their origins, and yet they are surprisingly similar. The shōmyō and Torah cantillation we will be dealing with are both monophonic, non-metric, and melismatic, and both are made up of short melodic fragments that are combined to form the chant. Shōmyō is a type of Buddhist chant used in religious services by the Tendai and Shingon sects
This semester of K’tonton, we are focusing on a few main topics: Hebrew, Holidays and Parsha (weekly Torah portions). We begin our morning with some coloring, and then have Moring Meeting. In Morning Meeting, we sing some songs and introduce the what we are doing each day. The first part of class is Hebrew. We are making our way through the Aleph –Bet, learning a new letter every week, which is the letter of the day. For each letter, we learn what the letter looks like, what its sound it makes, and
The name of this evening’s program, “Wanderlust”, refers directly to its definition – a strong desire for or impulse to travel and explore the world. The selected song cycles were written by composers of different backgrounds who were inspired by cultures outside of their own through their travels or other means of exposure. In each piece, one can see these sources of inspiration manifest itself in various ways, whether it be through the composer’s choice of text, their style of composition, or other
The name of this evening’s program, “Wanderlust,” refers directly to its definition: a strong desire for or impulse to travel and explore the world. The selected song cycles were written by composers of different backgrounds who were inspired by cultures outside of their own through travel or other means of exposure. In each piece, one can see these sources of inspiration manifest itself in various ways, whether it be through the composer’s choice of text, their style of composition, or other musical
On Halloween weekend, 2009, I had the opportunity to attend a major music festival in New Orleans – Voodoo Experience. Prior to this assignment, I had no intention of going to this event. However, as I began to piece together my topic and goals for this project, this became my best opportunity to experience what I have set out to understand. The purpose of this music-culture research report is to chronicle Jewish music in New Orleans – specifically the New Orleans Klezmer All Stars. I gave up