CHRISTIAN DAWID ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY: This is Christa Whitney and I'm here on August 23rd, 2011, at KlezKanada with Christian Dawid and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Christian, do I have your permission to record this interview?

CHRISTIAN DAWID: Yes, absolutely.

CW:Thanks. Can you tell me, just briefly, about your family background, where your parents came from?

CD:My mother comes from eastern Prussia, was born in the town of, then, Königsberg, what is now Kaliningrad. She was born in 1942. My father comes from the town of Bremen in northwest Germany. He was born in 1937, yeah.

CW:And what were their -- or are their -- occupations?

CD:Their occupations? My mother was educated as an educator. (laughter) For children. But she doesn't work, she didn't work as an educator at the time that me and my brother were born and raised. And my father was a pastor.

CW:And was music a part of your family historically?

CD:Yes. Not so much actively from the side of my parents. Both like to sing a lot but, yes, I mean, they both loved music. My father loved classical music a lot. So, we heard a lot of music, and they liked to go to the theater and concerts.

CW:And what was your favorite music growing up?

CD:Oh, it's hard to tell. There are too many. To quote an old friend that I just heard, when I say that one kind of music is my favorite, that means that others are worth less. So, I'd rather not answer that question, yeah. No, really broad. 2:00I was trained classically, classical music, but I also liked punk. Everything. Just contemporary and popular music and folk music styles.

CW:Can you tell me a little bit about the home you grew up in? You grew up in Bremen, right?

CD:Yes, yeah, in Bremen. That's where I spent most of my life and I only left the town when I was thirty-one, I think. Yeah, the house -- I mean, it's hard to translate. It's what I would call bourgeois in German. But I know that it's a little bit -- has a little bit of a different meaning in English. So, it was fairly settled. Yeah, my father was working all day. That generation didn't see their kids a lot. And my mother, later, started studying -- she became a 3:00sculpturist. She was in arts later, and she still is, so -- and I went to school and I had the highest possible school education, public school education. So, yeah, and we weren't rich but we had enough money to pay for music lessons and what us kids wanted to do, so -- and culture was an important part of our education and our lives, I think, yeah.

CW:And so, you said you went to the theater. And what other sort of cultural things were important in your family?

CD:Mostly really theater and concerts, yeah. And, well, family vacation, of course, would -- that's a different cultural activity, yeah.

CW:Where did you used to go for vacations?

CD:To the North Sea, which was close, and always the mountains, yeah, 'cause my father loved the mountains and I learned to love them, too. So, we went to Austria a lot, yeah, in summer. Yeah.

CW:Was Jewish culture -- I mean, were you exposed to Jewish culture growing up? Was it around?

CD:No, not directly, no. Certainly not. I mean, in my town -- Bremen is about a half million inhabitants. There was no public Jewish life. I mean, it was not hidden, but there were just -- the Jewish community was about a hundred, till the fall of communism, counted about a hundred members. And then, within a few years, with the Russian Jews coming, up to a thousand, but still not a lot. Jewish culture, through religious culture a little bit, through my father's profession as a pastor and the connection to Judaism from -- he was a Protestant -- Christ. So, from that a little bit, but not -- no, on the street or through 5:00friends, in our house, no.

CW:Then, you were trained as a classical musician, as a kid. So, how did that begin and what was the -- yeah, what schools did you go to and stuff like that?

CD:Mostly private lessons, really. Yeah, for a long time. I started playing -- I was in one of the school programs where you start learning recorder and you had a little bit of music theory and this kind of stuff, yeah, where I didn't behave very well, apparently, mostly, (laughs) which was later interpreted as a sign of talent because I was bored. So, I was often running around and doing other stuff. So, it was decided that private lessons would be better for me. And then, 6:00I was just interested in clarinet as an instrument because my parents offered me to learn an instrument and -- but it was pretty random, honestly, which many people don't believe now. But I saw a picture of a clarinetist and I thought that that was really cool. It looked good to me, so that's why I wanted to try the instrument. I mean, then I tried and, of course, I got to know the sound. And we went to a teacher and I liked the guy. He was a very friendly Hungarian teacher. And then, I started taking lessons, mostly, really, private lessons. Later, school choir, school orchestra. Yeah, and then, later, conservatory. I auditioned for conservatory and I was accepted and I spent five years in Bremen at the conservatory.

CW:And were there any people, mentors that stand out when you think about that 7:00period in your life?

CD:Also almost too many to mention. (laughs) Yeah, yeah. I mean, of course, if you study at a certain level and a certain intensity, you become quite close to teachers. Mentors, not so many, really. Yeah, maybe later, really, only after conservatory. But I was always interested in people and learning from people. Learning from many people, actually, and I admired -- I'm easy to impress, actually, (laughs) if I hear something and I hear someone playing beautifully, I love it and I try to connect and learn from them. So, yeah.

CW:I want to come back to that. But first, how well do you know Yiddish, if at all? Have you ever studied it? As a German speaker, you can probably understand 8:00quite a bit, but --

CD:Well, I understand -- it's easier for German speakers, obviously. I mean, it depends on how it is spoken and on the vocabulary, so -- but a lot of the vocabulary we get -- I mean, I used to say I understand quite a bit, just not the really important stuff. Kind of the inside vocabulary with just Hebrew or Slavic, I mean, I don't have to tell you. But, so, I had kind of a bit of a passive understanding and that just developed over the years, also with working with singers or singing a little bit myself and hearing people talk. I never ever had a single lesson in Yiddish, yeah, which I pity. But it was kind of funny because when I started working with the language or seriously being interested in the language, I was mostly at festivals like this. I was already 9:00teaching. So, at the time I could take a Yiddish lesson, I was busy myself, yeah.

CW:So, how did you come to klezmer music?

CD:Also fairly random because, at the time, when I left conservatory, after conservatory, klezmer music started being around and attractive as a world music style in Germany. So, American bands came and a couple of years before, an Argentinian-born clarinetist, Giora Feidman, started touring in Germany. So, the music was around, started being there, and I listened to it. And I liked it. I didn't play it then. But after conservatory, when I decided to not pursue a classical career, not an orchestra career, but to work freelance and independently, I started all kinds of different projects and I did a bunch of different things, yeah.

CW:What were some of the other projects?

CD:I was singing in an a capella group. I was joining a Latin percussion band. I 10:00was still doing chamber music projects or I was gigging as a classical musician, in a kids' opera or, later, yeah, in music theater. These kind of things, so -- and yeah, but I liked a lot of things and it's also, yeah, you need money. So, you do a lot of very different things. And the projects that I did myself were with friends. Yeah, I covered a wide range, yeah, of music, so -- and then, I started, also, with a friend -- we were interested in klezmer music and let's say, Well, let's try, let's see what happens. And we got together with a couple of people and started, very innocent, and played a couple of tunes that we knew from records or that we heard. And found other stuff, played some songs, just instrumentally. I wrote a couple of things of what I then thought was klezmer music.

CW:What were some of the first albums, klezmer albums that you heard?

CD:The first klezmer albums were Giora Feidman's solo albums. Then, Klezmatics, Brave Old World, Klezmer Conservatory Band. The Klezmorim, from California. Yeah, and going from there, yeah.

CW:And then, from that point, when you were writing your own songs, but you found out at some point that they weren't really klezmer, or --

CD:Well, I mean, yeah. I'm not a big fan of the questions what is klezmer and what is not. You know, it's like, Well, let's stop talking. Play, already. (laughs) But while it's interesting and I'm thinking about it and also teaching that -- but, yeah, no, as a band, my band from Bremen, we joined a workshop that 12:00was run by Brave Old World in 1995, in Germany. And a couple of other people were invited, like Henry Sapoznik and Michael Wex was here. Couple of other people I'm forgetting now, I'm sure. So, then we kind of lost our musical innocence, (laughs) because we were told, Oh, it's really nice, what you're doing, and it was kind of refreshing. But you are not really in the style, or not in what we have learned as a tradition. In that way, you don't make sense. I mean, fine, it's good. And yeah, then I was interested and wanted to learn more and also was encouraged. I was also encouraged. People said, Well, you understand something, you just need to know what you're doing, so -- and then, I studied more with people, yeah. Yeah, and the tunes I wrote also changed. (laughs)

CW:Yeah. What did you, I mean, sometimes people talk about music as sort of an 13:00entry point to a culture, as any art form is. What did you find in Jewish culture through klezmer music? What did you get interested in?

CD:Well, everything. I mean, I'm also one of these people -- I mean, culture is a whole, right? And culture's a language and a form of communication, in the first place, so it's hard to say, This is the music and this -- all that, because obviously everything is informed by all the other aspects. But still, yeah, I was interested in the instrumental music. So, that's what I could do or, I think, that's where I had the biggest ears. Maybe that's what's important, because you need to learn how to hear things, how to read things, how to understand things. And the area where you're trained in, you probably have the 14:00best antennas to hear, well, that's interesting. And I think what I share, to my knowledge or to my experience with many people that grew up in my generation, my culture -- in Central Europe, klezmer music seemed to be a fascinating mix of something that seems very familiar and very close and something that's far away. Think that's also what's attractive to audiences. So, some things seemed familiar. Rhythmically, it seems to be very close to Germanic phrasing, almost saying. So, you hear a structure that is not Asian, that is not Middle Eastern, that is -- feels clearly more Central European, that -- I'm generalizing, of course. (laughs) But then, you have musical gestures and also just simply modes 15:00and scales that are not that, that show (UNCLEAR) something -- that you think is close to home, but it's really not. It's somewhere else. So, you get a feeling, Oh, it comes to me somehow. It can take me or can take my hand and draw me in, but then I have to learn more about it, to understand it, also to play it myself, yeah. And that's a fascinating and ongoing process, yeah. Not just in klezmer music. In any form of culture and music. But, yeah, strongly.

CW:In that journey, have there been any sort of moments of epiphany or --

CD:What's epiphany?

CW:Or like a, Wow, this -- something makes sense, or a new part opens up?

CD:Oh, yeah, many. Yeah. Many. So, it's hard to point out, hard to talk about 16:00it. Also, just because it is music, right? So, yeah. Yeah, if we could talk about it, we needn't play it. (laughs) But yeah, and it keeps going that way because, yeah, the connections -- I mean, how things link. Simple musical gestures, really simple phrases. Can be two notes that you recognize in one tune and think it's in another tune. Oh, wait a minute, but it's in a completely different context all of a sudden. And that's fascinating, yeah. Yeah, eye-opening.

CW:And again, any specific mentors in klezmer music that have been important, or even idols? (laughs)

CD:No idols, not -- I think because I also entered it late. I was in my late twenties or so and I think I was beyond idols at that point. And it still -- 17:00yeah, people I admire just for being themselves and being who they are. Old people, always. Many, really many -- I mean, many of the artists who are here I've played with or I've heard first in concert and then played with them, yeah. I think I always admire strong individual expression. If you have the feeling of a strong personality onstage, yeah, that's fascinating because when someone's really talking, let's say, in an other -- than just verbal language, when someone's talking in dance or theater, and just when you see it's beyond just 18:00learning the language and the language kind of disappears but you're directly talking to an audience, that level is always fascinating. And I've heard, yeah, I'm blessed because I heard many, many good artists and worked with many great artists, yeah. We could make a list, but I think that would fill the hour now, that we're talking. (laughter)

CW:It's okay. So, I know that festivals are a big part of the klezmer music scene, as -- many types of music. When -- you mentioned this workshop with Brave Old World --

CD:Yeah.

CW:-- but what were some of the first festivals that you went to?

CD:I didn't really travel for a while, until I was really teaching myself. 19:00Actually, yes, that's true, and I started teaching about ten years ago, 2000, or -- wait a minute, in 2000, I was -- no, that was not a festival. That was a theater music project. No, in London, yeah, that was my first teaching job, let's say, in Yiddishland. And then, I was in Saint Petersburg. I was here, KlezKanada. I was in Klezmer Paris. I was in the Yiddish Summer Weimar a lot, teaching there for many years. And, yeah -- I'm also forgetting -- oh, the Jewish Culture Festival in Kraków is one of my homes, I would really say, yeah. I think I was also there in 2001 or 2002, maybe, for the first time. But since then, I've been coming every year and I've been invited every year and made 20:00many, many connections. And by now, I'm -- lots of friends in Kraków and I'm actually, right now, doing a Yiddish song project with a Polish singer from Kraków. So, it's kind of -- I mean, there's this term of Yiddishland that we crafted and I think that now it's a reality, it really exists. Yeah, it's clearly beyond just an illusion or a dream. We really use it. I mean, we really use it actively. The community of people who connects the scene, who comes together, partly travels together, or does projects in different countries. So, I think, by now, we do have a Yiddishland. Without a soil, but yeah.

CW:And do you have a favorite city in Yiddishland to perform in or sort of reside in?

CD:No. Well, maybe Kraków and here, actually, yeah. Yes, interestingly, I think 21:00also the biggest communities -- I mean, Kraków being very different because it's just a festival in town. But it's fairly big and there are many people coming there and many, many different people. I mean, for me to make it feel balanced and exciting and a way of feeling good, it needs a certain diversity. Yeah, so it needs to have all the boring and all the crazy people and all the frum [pious] people and all the radical young people and all the political folks and the queer folks and everybody. They all have to be there for me to feel good. (laughs) Yeah.

CW:And what do you -- I mean, having traveled so much and worked with so many different people, what is your sense of sort of trends that are going on in the 22:00Yiddish or klezmer music world right now in the time that you've been involved, the last fifteen years?

CD:Well, I feel that it's almost trend-free now and I think that's a good thing. I think it needed to go through a phase of people trying lots of things. And I mean, of course, there's always a little bit of market that influences things, like when Balkan brass bands are the hype, it's easier to sell your more brassy projects. So, that's what you need to do. And on and on, things like that. But I feel like that the artistic choices are fairly trend-free, at the moment, that people make, and that people really think we are trying to do -- what appeals 23:00most to them and what comes out of cooperations, just personal, really personal.

CW:So, been talking about early part of your life and how you got to where you are. But can you just give a snapshot of the projects you're working on now?

CD:Right now? Okay. So, I still have, it started a couple of years ago, a Ukrainian brass band called Konsonans Retro, which is partly playing Jewish repertoire but also a bunch of Moldovan and Ukrainian repertoire because they come out of a region where all these cultures blended and so on. They still have lots of repertoire from their father; it's a family band. That's what I'm doing. I'm playing with a trumpeter, an American trumpeter in Berlin, Paul Brody, who has a band called Paul Brody's Sadawi, which is kind of a klezmer jazz, 24:00avant-garde-ish mix. We just put out a new record, yeah, and he has lots of records. He's one of the Tzadik label artists, Paul is, so he has been working in that direction a lot. Then, the new project I'm now working on that we just premiered in Poland -- we had a double premiere in Kraków, at the Jewish festival and at the Oskar Schindler Factory. Is called "Bluer Than Blue" and it's Yiddish songs of the Holocaust in a program that works with visual arts and video projection. Let's say instead of subtitles, we have poetic subtitles but not literal translations of the words. Starting in English, now we're working on the Polish and a German version of that. So, it's song and it's -- yeah, it's like one cycle, it's one thing without interruptions. One thing goes into the 25:00other, so it's a big flow of music. It's very nice. It's just a quartet with Ula Makosz, the singer, Jewish Polish singer from Kraków, and two other musicians from Kraków. And right now, at the moment, I'm fundraising and writing arrangements to record Arkady Gendler, a singer from Ukraine, eighty-nine years old, who wrote in the last years a couple of songs. He never was a songwriter but he started late in his life to write songs. And he actually wrote songs about Yiddishland, about the places he visited and the places that inspired him. And he dedicated songs to the places. And part of these songs have never been recorded, have never been performed. Most of them have not been recorded yet. And so, that's what we're going to do. So, I'm writing arrangements in a fairly old style, almost classical theater aesthetic for a couple of instruments, for 26:00piano and strings and his voice.

CW:How did you meet him or come across him?

CD:I met Arkady in 2003. No, I first saw him in 2002, at the KlezKamp in Philadelphia, then, that year. And he was there as a performer. Performed, yeah, sang songs with Zalmen Mlotek on piano. And I loved his voice and his presence. And we didn't connect much then. We also didn't share a language at that point. Now we half-share two languages. (laughs) And then, I met him next year in Saint Petersburg, in the summer, at Klezfest Saint Petersburg, where we were both invited to teach. And from then, I've just met him regularly and, yeah, played with him and always loved him, as many people do.

CW:And how do you come to the projects, the specific projects that you work on? 27:00I mean, is there a process or just networking within the Yiddishland?

CD:It's networking within Yiddishland, basically, yeah. Yeah, really. I mean, the project with Ula Makosz, the singer from Kraków, it's -- we know each other for a couple of years now through the festival in Kraków. She also was here at KlezKanada one year. And yeah, we always liked each other's music and what we did, also personally. So, I was in Kraków in the winter because, yeah -- I'm spacing out. Jet lag. (laughter)

CW:That's okay. (laughter)

CD:What's the word? I'm helping the festival, little bit, in Kraków. Yeah, anyway. So, programming and they consult me sometimes, little bit. So, we talk. 28:00And it was in winter in Kraków and I just met Ula. And she said, "Well, I've always been busy collecting these songs and working with my sister." Her sister is Yiddishist, Julia Makosz. And just published the first Polish-Yiddish dictionary, actually. And so, she started a project. She wanted to bring it in a good form and yeah, make it a bigger project than just her singing in her concerts one more of these songs, just really dedicating a whole evening, a whole better concept, artistic concept to the whole thing. So, she asked me and I said, "Let's do it." And Berlin, Kraków, it's not that far. So yeah, we just started. And the project with Arkady is -- I've been thinking it for a while and, I mean, the idea was there to record with him. Also not from me -- also, Alan Bern, he had also the idea of recording him not with a klezmer band but 29:00more in an old style that builds in the music or works with the music that he grew up with, actually. Musical world -- what he listened to when he was young. So yeah, it just takes a lot of time. I mean, it's very work-intensive. It's a lot of hours writing it and organizing it. So, someone kind of needed to do it and then I just thought, Well, I want to do it. It needs to be done. Yeah, 'cause he's, mertshishem [God willing] turning ninety in October. So, it's nothing that -- it shouldn't wait, yeah.

CW:Have there been any specific performances that stand out in your mind as 30:00particularly meaningful in a specific city or a specific time?

CD:No, I'm sorry.

CW:It's okay. (laughter)

CD:Again --

CW:That's fine.

CD:I think, yeah, basically, again, too many to mention. I mean, there are many, many special moments. Yeah, also just individually, performing for -- moments that are just touching or -- yeah, often on festivals, they have connection to a scene or connecting to artists or to older people, yeah. Very much, that's an important connection, yeah.

CW:Can you tell me a little bit more about Yiddishland as you have experienced it?

CD:Hm. Well, I mean, it's a virtual world still, I mean, even when it works for 31:00us as a scene. And it's still here for a week and there for a week and somewhere else for a week. So, it's, of course, not representative of real life. And that makes it easier, I think, easier to experience it as a happy world, probably, because people are usually at their best. That also makes it exciting, of course, because you celebrate with your friends and you're really glad to be here and glad to see everybody that you don't see every day or every week. Yeah, but, I mean, I notice at a festival, like here, when you do have the time every 32:00now and then to talk with someone, "How've you been?" Someone has been terribly sick or tragedies happened or that things have not been so good, I miss that level, connecting to full life, let's say, and not just a festival somewhere, yeah. But, I mean, Yiddishland is also -- yeah, it's, I mean -- this is completely Yiddishland when we're here. But it's also when I visit friends, when I visit friends, when I stay in Montreal or in New York, sometimes you have it on a different level. Then you have personal connections and you do hear stories and you do talk and you -- yeah, and you have friends throughout the world, almost, or at least lots of the Western world. So, I don't know. I mean, for me, the balance of being at festival, like high times, and cutting out, this still 33:00works. Doesn't turn me off yet. Yeah. Yeah, and I think healthy about it is that's also still a fairly small community of people doing it. And at the core of -- people who really work professionally in the field, we're not so many. And you always notice when people are in a small room and work hard together, you also fight more -- (laughs) it's also difficult and where your personalities are just pushed, like to or not. So, sometimes also good that it's not longer and not all year, (laughs) definitely.

CW:What is your connection to other parts of Yiddish culture, Yiddish language and dance and visual arts? I mean, what are -- do you do collaborations with 34:00other -- you mentioned the video project, but --

CD:Well, as many musicians, I play a lot for Yiddish dancing. So, also in Montreal, we've been setting up a tantshoyz [dance hall], which is irregular now but getting more and more. So, I've been doing that a lot. Yiddish language -- well, Yiddish song. Yeah, language as in song more now than I did. I mean, my bands, my own bands never used Yiddish song or never incorporated Yiddish song. I was a pretty radical instrumentalist. And yeah, always had instrumental bands. I mean, I started playing or working with Yiddish song when I started playing with Brave Old World in a program, also, of ghetto songs from the ghetto of Łódź, Łódź, Łódźer ghetto song of the Łódźer ghetto. And I was 35:00touring with them in 2001, in Holland and Germany. And then, you meet people who come after the show and tell their stories or their anger or just, yeah, talk about it. And that's how I heard more and more Yiddish, not just through song but also through people talking, yeah. Then, at festivals, yeah, and -- well, I mean, I'm speaking Yiddish when I talk to Arkady Gendler on the phone. (laughs) It's wild, it's funky, but it works. And I speak a bit of Russian, so it's like I speak kind of a very German-accented Yiddish or German-structured Yiddish, with some Russian inflections and some Russian vocabulary. And that works on 36:00that basic communication level. So, it functions. So, I do speak a bit, yeah. I wouldn't necessarily do it on stage, but in my private life, as a means of communication, I use it. Not so much, because usually, yeah, people do speak other languages, and often better. But yeah, it's part of my daily life, almost, at the moment, yeah.

CW:Yeah. Hold on a second. Okay. (noise from street) Trucks. So, do you ever seek out people to practice Yiddish with? Or is it just a purely communicative --

CD:No, it's really for commun-- yeah, yeah. In a world with more time, I would love to work on it, yeah. I would by now because I'm interested in languages and I like languages. I like producing different sounds, yeah. Yeah, I enjoy that. 37:00And it's a super interesting language, also, with the history and how it's scattered all over the world and all over cultures. It's endlessly interesting, as any language is particularly -- all that in a very small time, just a couple of generations, what happened to the language is fascinating, yeah.

CW:What is it like for you not growing up with Jewish culture to now be sort of full-time doing Jewish music? (laughter)

CD:Well, in this world, talking to so many people, I think growing up without the Jewish culture, it's just liberating. (laughs) Well, I mean, there is a serious tone in that, actually, because I had other difficulties in my family. 38:00But I'm not a child or grandchild of Holocaust survivors and -- for example, just one of many examples, yeah. It's fairly easy for me now, 'cause I'm accepted and within an artist community, it's always easier because, I mean, musicians and it's -- same goes for dancers, theater people, everybody. You're already kind of an international community. You're kind of your own ethnicity almost because you just share so many stories and things in your professional life that are equal everywhere we go. And because you're also professional in exploring styles in other cultures. I mean, here it's more obvious, so I get asked the question much more often because most of the people coming here are 39:00Jewish. Not all of them are, but most of them are Jewish, so it kind of counts as a Jewish event and it's about Jewish culture, it's about our culture, right? And for a professional artist, this idea of "our culture" is almost not interesting for what you learn and how you do it. Of course, on the level of your personal experience, it's a different story. But when I play Mozart one day and sing a Bob Dylan song the other day and then play Chopin the next day, all of these are all three very, very different things that are all their own culture or that maybe a community identifies with. But it's, of course, in Mozart's case, it's not my community because it's just through history, separated. And even when I say, as a German, like the German classical music I 40:00grew up with, but I do -- no, I don't identify with it, but it's very dear to me. But if I would say it's my culture, that would say -- well, most of that is called the Wien klassisch, like the Viennese classic, which is Austrian, it's already not mine. And if you have a closer look, it's a wild, wild mix of French, Dutch, English, all kinds of Italian, of course. All kinds of different European music styles that went into music. And so, culture's always, yeah, a form of communication. Culture's always reaching out to me. And of course, there's an idea of home, where you come from, and certain parts I totally understand. I did not grow up in a synagogue, so the rhythm of praying, which 41:00makes a lot of sense in the language and in the music, I didn't grow up with that. So, I have to learn it kind of musically and I don't have religious identification when that happens. Yeah, so -- but that's just very obvious. I know that many of my friends also don't have it or wanted to learn it or also have their severe difficulties with it, saying, Well, like the religious part is not mine and I'm actually torn when it comes to praying phrases and all that. Some love it and some say, Well, I'd rather do a little bit more rock and roll with it (laughs) than going in that direction. Yeah, so, of course, you do feel 42:00different when you come into this world. It's been made fairly easy for me because I was invited by Jewish bands to play them, so I'm kind of legitimate now without having to work too hard for it. I never tried to be identified as Jewish or to pretend I'm Jewish or seek that in my work or in my music. I always wanted to play better and deeper and more expressive, but not necessarily in the way of I want to make it more Jewish because that just speaks to myself and helps my own path or my own way of, yeah, living my life. Yeah, it's endless. How much time do we have? (laughter)

CW:A little more. (laughs) What about reactions from fans? Have there ever been 43:00any amazing moments or awkward moments with fans? You mentioned that people, after the shows about the Holocaust repertoire, will elicit some reactions from people afterwards wanting to tell their stories.

CD:Absolutely. I mean, these are the moments where you do think -- where you're on stage and you do think -- yeah, when I first played the Łódź program with Brave Old World onstage, I had a moment -- I didn't think it when the show started, but somewhere in the middle of the show, I thought, like, Oh, wait a moment, I might really be the first German not Jewish guy who's playing these tunes in public or with a Jewish band. My God! So, (laughter) that was -- so, I don't have to face that discussion. Other discussions, which I have a lot -- 44:00also heated discussions, absolutely. But, yeah, I did have moments where I think, Oh, well, so, I'm the only one who does not have their grandmother onstage here and it's -- yeah, it's remarkable as an experience. I wouldn't even say it's like this or like that. It's too much in there. It's just more of a way to think, Oh, this is really interesting. This is special, yeah. Yeah, but I mean, on an individual level, it's almost never a problem when you talk to people because you see more than just a person being born with a passport or being the kids of the murderers or -- that's as wrong as seeing Jewish people as 45:00a people of victims, right? So, it's never that easy and it's always multifaceted. And yeah, the further you go -- yeah, but reactions from people, from audience -- I wouldn't say fans because, I mean, we're not rock bands. We're a small scene and -- (laughs)

CW:Oh, but you definitely do have fans.

CD:-- it's not like there are -- (laughter) well, yeah, but it's not like there are hundreds of cheering teens out there. (laughs) We're not that world. Most of us are not -- sometimes you have situations that come close, at bigger festivals where you have big stages. Like in Kraków, that's pretty much -- you think, Well, what's going on here? We're just playing klezmer music, yeah. Yeah, in terms of ethnicity or identity, I mean, what I have repeatedly is, for example, sweet old Jewish ladies who would not believe that you're not Jewish because 46:00that just doesn't work. That can't be, that you play and they think it's Jewish but you're not. That just doesn't -- it's not in everybody's thinking, let's say. So, I have had people who tried to convince me that I actually am Jewish. (laughs) And then, I said, "Well, I'm sorry. I mean, I'm European and I certainly have connection to German culture. I share lots of cultural connections and my mother's family has Slavic background, or being more in that area of Europe." But yeah, and also heated discussions, not directly after concerts because people are also polite, right? So, I'm very aware of when people do have problems with me playing the music or just didn't like the 47:00performance or whatever. No, they don't necessarily talk to you. No, they just leave and talk to their friends and say, Well, why does he do that? Or, I didn't like that act. So, yeah, so when people are talking to you, you're already on a -- have a certain readiness to discuss and to learn and not just dump your stuff on the other person. That also happens but that's easy to deal with. (laughs)

CW:So, what do you -- it's a simple question, but what do you like about klezmer music?

CD:Oh, (laughs) hard to say. I'm not sure I can answer it, actually, because it's music, because it's what I like. I don't know, I mean, the expressiveness appeals to me, yeah, and it seems a language that I can master myself to a 48:00certain extent. So, it's just like -- yeah, and every language, once -- language is a key, right, to the treasure trove of emotions and history and everything, that people tell you stories that you get. So, yeah, listening to musical stories -- wow, that sounds cheesy, but it's really true. Musical stories and just people's lives, all that, that it's very personal. It's a folk music -- and yeah, it's a folk music style that's open to the full range of expression and not just certain aesthetics like -- yeah, it doesn't need to be happy all the time. It doesn't need to be sad all the time. It doesn't need to rock all the time. And it's also for the holidays and for people's lives and for mourning and all that. So, that's what I like, which every folk music has. So, yeah, just 49:00connection to people and lives. Life, bring it on. (laughter)

CW:So, as a teacher, what do you -- I mean, what are the delights of teaching this music?

CD:The delights of teaching? The pay. (laughs) If you get paid. No, really, I mean, people who love the music and help them experience it on a deeper level and play better and have more fun, really. It's as simple as that. And it's always a little bit wild because, I mean, when we teach at these camps, it only 50:00goes so deep because you already have the group of people with very different backgrounds. So, it's also part of the whole experience of being here that moves people and makes them play better, yeah. But also, I mean, sometimes, it's also very simple because, I mean, it's -- there is also a style and a technique that you can communicate. And yeah, some people don't even know. In Germany, I had the experience though teachings of -- there was kind of a guru person around who always said, "Oh, this is how -- you just need to feel it. It's not really a music style. It's more the live band and attitude and it's almost a spiritual thing." And when you tell those people, "Well, but if you just lift this finger, you can produce this ornament at this time," and they'll go, Oh! Well, that's 51:00easy. Or, Oh, that's interesting, and it opens people's ears. And I think that's what I like most, to open the ears, yeah.

CW:And any particular challenges or pressures when teaching Jewish Yiddish music?

CD:Well, the challenge is always limited time. I mean, it's always better if you have more time with a person, obviously, to work on stuff in detail. So, I always feel that, you didn't get to work enough with everybody. Pressures, not so much, no. And I think the first couple of times, I was teaching in more Jewish workshop situations in North America or also in London, actually, it was interesting to see Jewish people come up to me and say, Can you teach me how to 52:00sound more Jewish? (laughs) That's an interesting thing. Oh, how am I supposed to do that? But, of course, I mean, there is a technique and it just is -- because there's also a level where you just learn a vocabulary. You learn a language. You just learn the grammar and I certainly can communicate that. Yeah, and put it together. Yeah, yeah, but it's -- I mean, the twist is -- that level is easy, of course. But it's sometimes tricky because it's not about the personal experience. I don't want to communicate -- well, communicate, yeah, onstage on a different level. I'm going to get my personal experience but I don't want to mess with people's lives. And so, like, well, that's how you feel more Jewish, if you play the tune this way. I would certainly not do that. I go 53:00to this level and say, "Well, this makes more musical sense if you play it like this." And you might think, say, "What you hear in old recordings, this line is beautiful because they do" this and this and point that out, yeah.

CW:Sounds fun. (laughter)

CD:It is, yeah.

CW:So, performing artists, historically, have an important role in cultural movements and revivals. I mean, what is your take on the idea of cultural revival in the big sense? What does it mean?

CD:Good question. You tell me. What's a cultural revival? I don't know. I mean, I like people appreciating connections and traditions, to understand bigger 54:00context, historically, personally -- like, to understand the cultural memory, why we still hear, Oh yeah, that makes sense. That sounds better. Why do we hear that? If the style was almost forgotten, if we learn from old recordings, why do we still -- Oh, yeah! This is a lot better. That's fascinating. That's interesting, really, how that is transported, how that connects to -- and, yeah, that's what I think is great about cultural revivals. There is always the danger, of course, of just looking back -- certainly not in the klezmer revival because it was too wild and there was no national connection, say. That's why, 55:00yeah, there wasn't Yiddishland where you could go to. People lived everywhere, all over the world. So, yeah, there was too little, actually, to make that kind of only retrospective or yeah, too little information. Yeah, but I mean, I was saying in workshops, it's good to go back as far as you can to understand which step makes sense, just for yourself, for deeper understanding. And by that, a deeper experience and more fun or also more pain. Just more emotion and also a deeper intellectual experience on that level. Yeah, because when I understand 56:00where A is and where I am, I can see, okay, where the next logical step is. I don't have to take it. No, not at all. I wouldn't say, like, "Be in the line." "Son, you need to keep the tradition." No, that's nonsense. Tradition is what we create right now. This is tradition, every day, yeah. This is it. (laughs) Right in the middle of it when someone comes with a keyboard and plays a tune that was always played on a cymbal with a keyboard, then that's the tradition. It's that way. Nothing to discuss. It's just what it is. You can still say, Well, maybe that doesn't make so much sense because you're losing something on the way. I mean, of course, you're also gaining something. But you're losing this quality, and to see that and be conscious with what you do as an artist or as a linguist or in whatever field. As a cook, as a dancer. In every field, really. And I 57:00think this understanding is crucial. A certain understanding of where it comes from and what might have gone in there and what might not. What you love in there and also what you don't like in there. There are certain parts, understanding tradition, where -- why I don't like certain genres as much anymore, when you see, oh, this actually was implied -- it came from the Romanian kind of nationalist movement that artificially created this form of dance or something like -- oh, yeah, that makes sense. I understand. Well, I don't really like those tunes so much anymore. Let's -- would rather look for the others, also that it's interesting, yeah. I think what I like from -- every artist, basically, every artist performs or every cook, he cooks -- to think about what they're doing and make a conscious decision. And even the decision to 58:00-- I don't care at all. I just want to play this experimental -- I want to have fun. This is good, too, as long as, you know, give it one thought and be honest with what you do. And for that, all the teaching that happens here is phenomenal and super important, I think.

CW:I'm just curious, specifically about the revival in Europe and in Germany. I know that there are different feelings about the klezmer revival in Germany from American Jews --

CD:Really? (laughs)

CW:-- and from different -- just people --

CD:Yeah.

CW:-- from different parts of the world that have less experience with it or more. Can you sort of give a picture of what is it -- what are the main components of the klezmer music revival in Europe right now?

CD:I mean, first, I think the revival's over anyway. This kind of movement, it's there. And people use it and learn it or don't. It's there and it's not a trend anymore as it used to be for a couple of years, at least in Germany in the mid-'90s, it was trendy. Oh, klezmer music was interesting, yeah, for some of the good and most of the bad reasons, also. I mean, not bad motivation from people to love it, but just because it was not there, there was no connection. Basically zero connection to Jewish culture. And basically, zero connection to Ashkenazic Jewish culture, which also led to lots of misunderstandings, that people thought, Oh, that was basically what Jews had been doing in Germany, right? No. But, yeah, but really, people needed to learn that and many people 60:00still need to learn it. So, I think the main difference in the first years was that there was little connection to Jewish community in Germany, especially, partly because of these misunderstandings, partly also because from out of the Jewish community, there were individuals who liked it and who also started joining that community and doing their own things, but very little. It was people were suspicious, what's going on there. It's weird. Jew without a beard, or what is it at all? What do they want? Also, a question about motivation. Is it like this is whole consolation thing? Also problematic because there were 61:00also Jewish artists exploiting that or actively promoting that, which made it more complicated and a slower process. But I feel that now in Europe, it's a lot more international. Like at the festival in Weimar, I mean, many of these people here have also been to Weimar, for example, especially of the more professional musicians, everybody who's -- really be interested in working with it professionally and tries to study, goes to other places. Also because the connection to Eastern Europe is much easier and there are more people from Eastern Europe also living in Central and Western Europe now, in those countries, or travel there. It has been easier. It's easier now to travel and cheaper. So, it's a lot more international now, I feel, yeah. And like at a 62:00festival, like in Weimar, there're definitely more Jews than there used to be, more Jewish artists, young Jewish artists who come to study or are part of the festival or teaching there. But it's still not embedded in Jewish communities, mostly, yeah. I know it is a bit in London, funding-wise, as far as I understand. And so, I mean, there's -- it's not true for whole Europe, I don't have a picture everywhere. But I also know that at the Jewish festival in Kraków, it took a while to cooperate with the Jewish community. It really took many years, actually. No, now the contacts are great. They're cooperating and it's hand-in-hand, really, yeah. But it was a slow process.

CW:And where do you see it -- see klezmer music going, the trends or --

CD:I don't know. I can't tell. I mean, since it's -- yeah, I mean, it still is mostly a folk music style. So, it can really go anywhere, it's where -- yeah, anywhere where the people go, and people go -- yeah, I think it feels fairly established now. So, that is one of the genres like tango or fado or -- we also have klezmer music and so it will have its audience. The audience is definitely smaller than it used to be ten years ago, when it was newer in Europe and a 64:00little bit trendy, more interesting. And it partly has its home in its own community. Not just its own audience, but really more its own community. And I think it's not a music that's necessarily very easy to communicate, no. It's always successful if it's a blend. We say that we do the rock-y or we do the klezmer revolution or those kind of things, funky things, that consciously blend this music with styles that are more approachable. But I think, for me, at least, it turns out that over the years, it's still pretty strange. It's strange music. It's often hard to understand. It's really a music that is deeply rooted 65:00in a past and in some country that really is no more. It comes out of that. And, I mean, we brought it here and we use it but those connections are still there. And basically, the more traditional you play or the more expert you are in an older style, in a style that's really like klezmer, klezmer, klezmer, the smaller your audience will be, really, because people don't understand it or find it tiring, like when you hear a half hour of -- you never listen to Bulgarian music, which is very -- lots of notes and very virtuosic. It's tiring at first if you don't understand it. If you understand the language, fine. But if you walk into a bar and everybody's speaking Yiddish and you have no idea, then after a half hour, you just want to get out and your ears buzz and -- because you don't understand a single word. And music works the same.

CW:What have you learned through your work in klezmer?

CD:Whoa! (laughs) So many things. I mean, I'm just now thinking, Did I learn things that I would not have learned in other musics? And I'm not sure. I mean, I gained knowledge, certainly, about Jewish culture, about religion, language, all that. I've developed friendships that I wouldn't have developed if I was not in this music. Some of best friends are now here, in this world, and not somewhere else. So, yeah, and I don't know, so many things. Life, yeah. People. 67:00Technical skills. Performance skills. All that, yeah. But specifically, from klezmer music, yeah, probably just that -- this will sound cheesy again, but it's really worth it to learn and to understand something that you just really don't understand. So, to follow your guts and think, Oh, there is some attraction. What is it? I want to figure this out. And regardless of if it's just beautiful or something or -- why does it work? So, to figure it out, yeah, basically. Yeah, and I'm still trying to figure it out. (laughs) Yeah.

CW:And I have a couple more questions, but is there anything you want to be sure to touch on that we haven't yet?

CD:I don't think so, no.

CW:All right.

CD:I have nothing I could think of now.

CW:Are there any particular phrases or words that you've learned in Yiddish that you really like?

CD:Oh, my God. (laughs) No, I couldn't name a phrase, no, no. I like the roughness. And this is also something that you need to learn to hear, which I think I have a certain advantage, like the directness, because I do speak German and I speak Dutch, also, fluent. And Dutch is a good comparison because it's this language that sounds -- to many Germans, it sounds charming, which is, in 69:00fact, not -- it's harder than German. It's rough and it's very direct. It's very impolite. And I like that quality in Yiddish, the impoliteness, the balance of the beauty and something directly in your face that you couldn't say more direct. (laughs) I like it because that's also a musical quality. Yeah, it needs to have that range. So, it seems to be a language that functions well in that respect, yeah. Also, the immediate range from super sophisticated to obscene, (laughs) I also like that, yeah.

CW:And I'd just like to end by asking if you can give any advice to aspiring artists or future generations?

CD:Whoa! Like two or three lines? I don't know. Yeah, be curious and everything 70:00matters, really. I think that's important and that's also something I like about folk music and which is strongly reflected for me in Yiddish culture, that everything really matters. It's a very talkative thing. And coming from a different culture, I was sometimes annoyed by it until I learned everybody's annoyed by it. It's just the way it is. (laughs) So, people talk and talk and talk and play and play and play. And there is a lot to say and, really, everything matters. It's important. It's good. So, it should matter to us; it should matter to you, as a future artist. And be curious and want to learn 71:00everything. Yeah, because I think there is, yeah, treasure in everything, like in the tiniest little thing, yeah.

CW:Okay, thank you.

CD:Sure, thank you.

[END OF INTERVIEW]