2021 YIDSTOCK: The Festival of New Yiddish Music Brings Some of Klezmer's Biggest Stars to the Virtual Stage

The Yiddish Book Center’s annual YIDSTOCK: The Festival of New Yiddish Music will be presented as a pre-recorded, 75-minute program featuring a dozen musicians from around the world—including Eleanor Reissa, Lorin Sklamberg, Frank London, and Daniel Kahn and Sveta Kundish from Berlin—performing Yiddish songs of social justice. The program will stream virtually on Sunday, July 11, at 4pm (ET).

YIDSTOCK musicians will be performing a broad and eclectic repertoire of social justice songs recorded exclusively for YIDSTOCK and drawn from Yiddish music and literature. These include labor anthems, protest songs, humanitarian odes, songs of struggle, and songs based in Yiddish poetry. The program’s theme of social justice is drawn from the Yiddish Book Center’s Decade of Discovery, a ten-year programming initiative, which in 2021 is themed to "Yiddish and Social Justice."

“Issues related to social justice have deep roots in Yiddish literature, songs, and dramatic works,” says the Center’s director of public programs, Lisa Newman. “We’re excited to see how these performers are regenerating and reimagining this in their work at this year’s YIDSTOCK.”

Other artists taking part include Cilla Owens, Sarah Myerson and Ilya Shneyveys, Niki Jacobs from the Netherlands, Polina and Merlin Shepherd from Brighton, UK, Sarah Gordon and Michael Winograd from Brooklyn, Tatiana Wechsler, Éléonore Weill and Zoë Aqua, and Patrick Farrell.

The pre-recorded program will be emceed by YIDSTOCK artistic director Seth Rogovoy. “Moving this year’s event to online provides us the opportunity to present musical artists from around the world,” says Rogovoy. “It allows us to include a number of artists who haven’t performed at YIDSTOCK previously—fully half of the artists will be making their YIDSTOCK debuts.”

For more information about the artists and to reserve a ticket, please visit YIDSTOCK:The Festival of New Yiddish Music.

In addition to the pre-recorded program on July 11, the Yiddish Book Center will be presenting a series of virtual public programs in July on the theme of Yiddish and social justice, including a talk about Yiddish music of the Holocaust and one about Jewish protest singers of the 1960s, as well as a conversation with several YIDSTOCK performers. Check the Yiddish Book Center events calendar for details and registration for these events.