POLINA MARKOVNA SHEPHERD ORAL HISTORY

ZE'EV DUCKWORTH: This is Ze'ev Duckworth, and today is July 16th, 2015. I'm here at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts with Polina Shepherd, and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Polina Shepherd, do I have your permission to record this interview?

POLINA MARKOVNA SHEPHERD: Yes, you do.

ZD:Great, thank you. So, we're going to start by talking a little bit about your background. Can you tell me briefly what you know about your family background?

PMS:Well, my mother is Russian and Ukrainian. My father is Jewish. My mother comes from -- my mother's branches of family come from Odessa and Kiev, and they came to Russia via Kazakhstan. My grandfather from my mother's side was a 1:00veteran of the Second World War. He was also a KGB officer, and he was also a (UNCLEAR) and he played bayan, which is a button accordion. Musical family. My father's side, Ashkenazi Jews from Poland, Ukraine, came from Kiev and Odessa, as well. Were modest people. Ran away from the Nazis, from Ukraine, all the way to Siberia, where they settled. My father was one year old when the great patriotic war started in Russia, which is the Second World War of 1941, and they ran away. All the other cousins and brothers of my grandparents from my father's side died in Babi Yar, so I never knew that part of my family. So, there!

ZD:Right. Do you know a little bit about what life was like for each side of the family?

PMS:Yes, I actually -- I've done my best to research into that. I even have diaries and memories written down from my ancestors. I didn't know my father's parents very well because they lived quite far away from us. They lived in Siberia and we lived -- when I was born, my parents from Siberia to Tatarstan, so we never -- we didn't really see each other very often, because of this distance. So, I never developed a deep relationship with my grandparents, which is probably why I turned to Yiddish music. Anyway. But I did ask my father about his childhood and everything that he could remember. Lots. And also, of course, I ask my mother. I think I can imagine that hungry childhoods -- my mother in Kazakhstan, my father in Kiev, both families with three children, both quite 3:00deprived of attention, nice food, love. Yes, I think I can imagine and I know --

ZD:Have any particular stories that have been passed down?

PMS:Oh, there are heartbreaking stories from my father and his eldest sister, who was ten years older than him. For example, one of the stories is how -- the journey from Kiev to Siberia, when they were escaping from the Nazis. Their mother took my father, who was one year old, a baby, and his sister, who was ten years old, and they got on this train where lots of people were, lots of Jews. And not just Jews, but mostly Jews who were running away from Kiev. The father stayed in Kiev, but they went on that train and -- with a baby and with a ten-year-old girl. My grandmother was exhausted taking care of them, and they 4:00had to -- sometimes, the train would stop when there was an alarm. What's it called? The sirens for air attack. So, the train would stop and they were required to leave the train, run into the next -- I don't know, hide in the woods or hide somewhere until the alarm -- it was safe to go back on the train and carry on with the journey. And my aunt remembers it all. She was ten years old. Tells me that after several of these, their mother stopped getting them out of the train and they just stayed on the train because they were so exhausted that they couldn't -- she just couldn't cope with it. So, they were exhausted. And another story is when they moved to Siberia, and they were hungry -- they didn't have much -- they ran away with little suitcases. And they didn't have 5:00very much food, so my aunt tells me a story -- well, she remembers that my father was -- again, he was a little boy -- when they had a slice of bread per person per day. And my father was something like three, four years old, and he kept pinching, bit by bit, his sister's bread, and eventually he just ate the whole slice of bread, and she was really upset. And she remembers that story and she tells it still with tears in her eyes. She's now eighty-something years old.

ZD:Wow.

PMS:So, yeah.

ZD:So, you said you were born, originally, in --

PMS:I was born in Novosibirsk and I was registered in Tomsk. They are really near, by Russian standards: two hundred-something kilometers away from each other. Siberia, yeah.

ZD:Okay. And then, how old were you when you moved?

PMS:Three. So, I don't really remember much of the moving.

ZD:And how did your parents come to meet each other?

PMS:University life. Yeah. My mother was singing in a big choir in her academy, and my father went to see concerts. And all the students mixed together, went dancing, went partying. So, they met, yeah.

ZD:And then, where did you move to when you were three?

PMS:Tatarstan.

ZD:Where in Tatarstan?

PMS:We moved to Naberezhnye Chelny, which is a city of something like six hundred thousand people. It was slightly smaller then. They started building it in 1969, I believe, because I saw these big adverts, "We started our new city." It was a big car factory. But my father was offered a job at university as a 7:00lecturer. So, they moved to Naberezhnye Chelny, which is about a thousand kilometers east of Moscow. At some point, that city was called Brezhnev. When Brezhnev died, the Communist Party leader in -- I don't know. It was before your history. When he died, the town was called Brezhnev for a while, for something like five years, and then they went back to the old name, Naberezhnye Chelny. So, that's where I spent my childhood and went to school.

ZD:What did your father lecture in?

PMS:Informatics.

ZD:Okay. Can you describe a little bit the home you grew up in?

PMS:Soviet home, just like everyone else. The place we lived in was a two-bedroom apartment with a small kitchen, a room for the children, a room which was the living room, and the room for my parents. My brother and I went to 8:00school. Woke up at half past six every morning, went to school. Eight to, whatever, three, we were in school, studying all the subjects of -- just the normal subjects in Soviet school. Had meals together. Sometimes not, because both parents were working, and we had soup for lunch made out of bone and potatoes and cabbage. We didn't have a very luxurious childhood, but it was full of joy, and we had different values back then compared to how they are now. So, I kind of miss that time.

ZD:Could you elaborate a little bit more about that? What kind of values?

PMS:We were all friendly. The kids in my school came from many, many different ethnic backgrounds, because people from all over the Soviet Union came to build this new city, car factory. So, we had Ukrainians, we had Tatars, which is the 9:00main population in Tatarstan, obviously. We had Belarusian people, we had lots of Russians and Jews, and we all had strange surnames. Tofstayn wasn't the most common kind of surname, so children would ask me, "Why is your surname so funny?" But we never talked about our differences. We were all Soviet citizens. And there was something nice about it. We didn't have different clothes, we didn't have richer kids, we didn't have poorer kids. We were all the same. We wore school uniforms, we all talked about what films we saw on television yesterday. We all talked about just normal, human things. We spent time together as friends. Nothing was counted materially. It was all about just sharing and 10:00being together in friendships. You could knock on your friend's door anytime, day or night. You didn't have to make a call and arrange things. Grandparents would babysit without saying, I'm saving you money. Any of the commercial --

ZD:Right.

PMS:-- calculating what this would cost for their children if they had a babysitter, any of that, we didn't have any of this. We just shared food with each other, as well, bring our dinners and bring our lunch and share it in school and all that. I miss that.

ZD:Did your home feel Jewish in any way?

PMS:No, firstly because my family's from two different backgrounds. Secondly, because nobody was concerned about their roots, really, very much. It wasn't 11:00popular to talk about ethnic background. When I was sixteen, I started asking these questions. I was just interested, myself. I had only heard one or two references to my father being Jewish before then, and it was negative. It was that he wasn't given a better position at work because of being Jewish, and something else. Somebody commented, made an anti-Semitic comment, and that was it. So, at the age of sixteen, we used to have to get a passport in Soviet Union. So, in that passport, we used to have to put our ethnic background. We don't have to do it anymore in Russia, but we had to put Russian or Tatar or -- and I started asking questions, and I had an option of putting Jewish or putting Russian in my passport. So, that was a big moment of choice for me.

ZD:What did you choose?

PMS:I wanted to put Jewish, just because I felt different, I wanted to be different. I felt really drawn to my Jewishness. But my parents put lots of pressure on me, and they said, You'll have many more obstacles in your life if you put Jewish. So, put Russian. I put Russian.

ZD:Could you talk a little bit more about feeling different, about feeling Jewishness? What does that mean?

PMS:Well, I believe that me feeling different, though, does have something in common with being Jewish. I think I'm different, because amongst Jews and not Jew, amongst Russians I'm not Russian, amongst people I'm not human. I just feel different. I feel different. Strongly individual. But culturally, there was a period in my life when I felt Jewish amongst Russians, and when I was just 13:00learning about this culture, when I was getting into it, I felt not understood and I felt slightly pushed away by my -- the majority of kids and teenagers in my secondary school, for example, these formative years. And at the same time, I found my group of Jewish people, who I were linked to and I socialized with. So, there was a bit of that interesting search for my identity at some point in my life. But feeling different, I think, stage by stage, I -- still discovering what that is, yeah.

ZD:You mentioned that you felt not -- that you found a group of Jewish friends. How old were you at this point?

PMS:Sixteen.

ZD:Sixteen.

PMS:This was when I moved to study. After my school, I went to study in the secondary school, which is like a college. It's a different system of education, 14:00so I was fifteen years old when I moved to Kazan, on my own. Kazan is the capitol of Tatarstan, and there was this secondary school, like a college, a music college. So, apart from just my normal studies, I -- there was lots of cultural life. It's the capital of Tatarstan, lots of things happening. Really melting pot of so many cultures there. There were festivals, there was jazz, there was rock, there was this and that. And there was a Jewish community. And I went to see a concert. And that was it. (laughs) I was really lucky to be in Kazan, because Kazan was a city where the first klezmer band in the Soviet Union in the end of the '80s was just starting to come together and perform in public. And I was at one of their first concerts. And they also had a youth club, so I 15:00went to the youth club. And I joined the band after a year. So, there was a big, big, growing community, as I was just joining the Jewish community. It was still growing and developing, young people were coming in. I was right in the center of it all.

ZD:Wow. When you moved to Kazan and you found this group of Jewish friends, is that when you started to feel --

PMS:That's when it all clicked together, 'cause I did feel I was Jewish. I looked Jewish. I wanted to be Jewish. Before I moved to Kazan, that was when I started asking myself these questions. So, I was fifteen, sixteen years, getting a passport. Sixteen, I saw the first concert. Kind of happened about the same 16:00time. I think -- I asked myself who I was a bit earlier than that. But then it all clicked together: this is my culture.

ZD:And then, you also mentioned that there were brief moments where you felt not Jewish with Jewish people and then not Russian with Russian people.

PMS:Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

ZD:Do you have any stories, examples of that?

PMS:I have an example from something like two or three years ago.

ZD:Okay.

PMS:Would that work?

ZD:Yeah.

PMS:That'll demonstrate my point. I was at a Jewish conference, Limmud. I'm sure you've heard about Limmud in -- Jewish conference, Limmud, in Britain. A couple of years ago, I was booked by the Jewish Music Institute in London to go and teach Yiddish choir over the course of that week. So, I went there and on the second day of me being there, Adrienne Cooper died. You've heard about Adrienne 17:00Cooper? An activist, a very charismatic figure. One of the six people who turned me onto this music, who came to Russia, who traveled the world and promoted this music. She was one of the people who came to Russia to teach us, to teach Russian Jews this culture, and bringing it back. And she was a great person. She's one of these huge, huge, huge authorities for me. So, she died and it was a big loss, one of the biggest losses I had in my life. And I went to the team of people who produced the newsletter at Limmud. And I said, "Can we put a line there?" They said, Who is Adrienne Cooper? So, I told them. I gave them a couple of links, I tried to explain. They said, Okay, okay, we'll think about it. And they didn't do it. And then, I tried to find someone to talk about this, and nobody was interested. And I felt a huge, huge wave of sorrow. It's like 18:00mainstream Jewish community in Britain, certainly -- it's quite different in America, I sense -- is into Israel, Judaism, Hebrew, whatever other culture. Yiddish culture, Ashkenazi culture is marginal. I do feel that, and I feel that it's kind of -- I was outed. I'm almost crying now telling you that, because it's a very profound -- that was a big kick for me. It was a big, traumatic experience, and I come across that very often, and I have to fight for this culture. And seeing what happened in Kazan, in my town, from when I was sixteen, when this community was growing, when we had this klezmer band, we had these fantastic performances, concerts, open to public. We had our youth ensemble. We performed with ensemble. We traveled all over Soviet Union, performing Yiddish songs. It was all so enthusiastic, so open, so positive. And now, I go back to 19:00Tatarstan -- last year, my husband and I went to perform for the Jewish festival in Kazan, and I had the same feeling from that community. So, it's maybe a global thing that's happening everywhere. We were in minority, performing Yiddish and klezmer. The rest was Israeli-Hebrew pop, rock, jazz, whatever else. But Jewish people playing classical music and all sorts, but -- establishment and all that, but not Yiddish, not klezmer. I do feel that. And I run away to Russian music when that happens. (laughs)

ZD:Why to Russian music?

PMS:Well, I love Russian music. I feel like I'm both this and that, and I know quite a lot. I studied it, I grew up with it, so I feel like I can actually share it on a good level, so I teach -- I have Russian choirs in Britain, and I 20:00sing in Russian, yeah.

ZD:Just one last question about feeling Jewish and not Jewish. You also mentioned, there were a couple of mentions of your dad's Jewishness, and that was often negative. Can you remember a particular time when you felt Jewish in a particularly negative way or in a particularly positive way?

PMS:You know what? I'm asked this question quite often. The negative references only happened twice, and I remember them. I've never experienced any anti-Semitism directly, not that I know of. Maybe somebody didn't invite me to do a gig for them or something because I was Jewish, but not that I know of. In my time, it was all quite positive. It was after perestroika. A lot of cultures just began to explore their roots then, not just Jews. Tatars. I don't know, 21:00everyone. We had lots of these little ethnic groups in the Volga region, and they all, like mushrooms, they started growing and exploring and opening up. So, I grew up in this fortunate period of history, when it was all good. So, it was good to be Jewish.

ZD:Interesting. Were there any organizations or institutions that you and your family were involved in when you were a child or when you were growing up?

PMS:My father started the Naberezhnye Chelny Jewish community.

ZD:Huh.

PMS:He was amongst the five founding members, and I was there. And I tried to sing something in -- I knew "Hava Nagila" or something, so I tried to sing -- I didn't know it. Just the tune. Oh, that was the second reference. He wasn't accepted into the Communist Party, because the quota for Jews was kind of -- 22:00there was something to do with the Communist Party, so he wasn't a member of the Communist Party. Kind of because he was Jewish. But I can't tell you exactly. There's a link. Otherwise, not really. And I was a member of the Jewish community in Kazan, and that's it.

ZD:You mentioned in your pre-interview questionnaire that you didn't join the synagogue in Kazan.

PMS:No.

ZD:Do you --

PMS:They were Lubavitch.

ZD:Is there a story behind it?

PMS:I was a singer! (laughs) I wanted to sing. They were Lubavitch. That was the time when our borders opened, and the Jewish community of Kazan was brought together by music. It was quite, quite, quite interesting: because of that klezmer band, Simcha, and their concerts, all the Jews came to the concerts. There was no formal religious side to it. And then, we had people from America 23:00who were being paid by, I believe, Chabad Lubavitch to be in Russia and to educate Russian Jews in Judaism. So, they got their space in our synagogue, the synagogue which wasn't just a synagogue. It was the community center for all Jewish organizations. We had the youth club, we had the elderly people's Sunday cake and tea (laughter) club, we had a Yiddish, a Jewish choir. We had all sorts of activities. It was the synagogue.

ZD:Right.

PMS:It was the synagogue building that the Jewish community got back from the government of Tatarstan free. It was returned to the Jewish community, but it wasn't a religious place of service. So, then Chabad Lubavitch came in and they went into the community, and they -- it was great for some people. But when I 24:00learned that they were paying our elderly people -- they were giving them free meals, which is okay, and they were paying them ten rubles per service so that they have a minyan. I thought, Well, that's a bit wrong. I think Chabad Lubavitch was a bit too much for Soviet people with a secular mentality, and a lot of us couldn't connect to it, obviously. So, there was a bit of a clash in the beginning.

ZD:Could you expand a little bit more about what you mean by that?

PMS:Well, the lifestyle that Chabad Lubavitch promotes is quite --- it has a lot of rules: what you should do, what you shouldn't do, what you should eat, all that stuff. So, Russian Jews, they eat whatever they want. You want a lobster? You want caviar? You want bacon? I thought it was really hard for our normal 25:00Jews, Soviet people with Soviet mentality -- not even with Jewish mentality. That's the big, big question: what is Soviet Jewish mentality, people who had been removed --

ZD:Right.

PMS:-- from their roots for so long. I think because they were so far away from their roots, it was difficult for them to go that religious straightaway --

ZD:Right.

PMS:-- and have such a big lifestyle change.

ZD:So, we've established you moved to Kazan --

PMS:Yeah.

ZD:-- and you moved there for your college years. Can you just tell me briefly about your education?

PMS:That's a four-year college. Secondary school, as we call them. Classical music, musicology, theory and history of music. That's what I studied, and I played piano as my second specialty, specialization, whatever. So, that's what I did, and then I went to the Kazan State Conservatory, which is -- Conservatoire, 26:00I don't know you pronounce it.

ZD:Yeah.

PMS:It's the high education -- five years studying the same: history and theory of music and piano as a second instrument, second profession. So, that was a solid eight years music school, four years college, five years conservatory. That makes it quite a few years of academic training in classical music. Classical music plus a bit of folklore. Russian folklore and Tatar folklore. And I also wrote a few essays in klezmer and Yiddish music. Officially. They accepted it. They loved it. They were really interested.

ZD:What did you write about?

PMS:I write about the current state of Jewish music in Tatarstan. So, I spoke to people who remembered tiny bits from their childhood. Some Yiddish songs, some 27:00klezmer. Anything to do with Jewishness. I did go around elderly people in Kazan, I collected -- I had to write it down, I didn't have a recording device then. Was just poor student. So, I brought back these materials and handwritten bits of songs, and then I found these songs, and most of them were quite popular, (laughs) to my disappointment. But I wrote about it and I gave my paper to the committee, and they -- at the conservatory, and they didn't know anything about it. So, for them, it was new and different.

ZD:Interesting. So, you were in the conservatory for five years.

PMS:Yeah.

ZD:And then, after that, did you move to the UK or --

PMS:No, I stayed in Kazan. You see, by the age of seventeen, I already started traveling around former Soviet Union with that band, Simcha.

ZD:Right.

PMS:I joined the band, as a young talent. They grabbed me and I joined the band. 28:00So, we performed everywhere, and I liked that traveling, but I liked being based in Kazan. And then, I -- well, we had our own youth ensemble, as well, L'Chaim, we were called, and we performed as well. We traveled a bit. And then, I started my own vocal quartet, which we actually, in fact, came to the Yiddish Book Center in 2002 and performed here.

ZD:Nice.

PMS:So, we toured internationally. And I liked living in Kazan and I got married there. Having spent my student -- my formative years -- in Kazan, I think I got really attached to it, so I stayed there and I worked there. And I traveled and I came back and traveled and came back until I met my husband, present husband, Merlin, and then I moved to Britain, thirteen years ago.

ZD:Okay, so we've been talking about your background and we know that today you 29:00still tour around, you still sing and play and perform.

PMS:Same old, same old. (laughs)

ZD:So, now I'd like to turn to a discussion about just exactly -- a little bit about personal history with Yiddish and some of your inspiration, your musical inspirations. So, just to start out, how would you describe your knowledge of Yiddish?

PMS:Of the language? Poor. I understand quite a bit, but not specialized texts. If it's just normal conversation, mundane conversation, I can understand it. I tend not to respond in Yiddish. I'm just too self-conscious. There was a time when I spoke Yiddish okay, and that was in Kazan, when I attended Yiddish 30:00classes in our community center. So, my Yiddish was much better. Now, I don't really speak it that much, to my shame. (laughs) I do understand all the words in all the songs. I do my homework, yeah. It's in my plans. I need to improve.

ZD:Do you remember how much Yiddish there was in your community?

PMS:I do, I do, yeah, because I studied that. I went 'round asking people.

ZD:Right.

PMS:Not much. Some of the elderly people spoke Yiddish. The teacher who I studied from spoke Yiddish as his native language, so he taught us Yiddish, not -- well, he used books, but he spoke Yiddish and his Yiddish wasn't the same Yiddish as in the book, so he had to make sure that he was teaching us correctly. He didn't, but he did his best. So, there were a few people who spoke 31:00Yiddish. Older people. Older people. So, that's the generation of my grandparents. So, most people I came in contact with were in their fifties, sixties, which is already -- they were a bit too young to speak Yiddish, already. So, not much. But because the band that brought the Jewish community in Kazan together was a klezmer band, I think all these Yiddish memories were amplified and brought to life by the band. So, whoever spoke a bit of Yiddish, whoever remembered anything, had any Yiddishkayt in them, they would come to concerts and they would talk and they would -- the band leader spoke Yiddish, so I heard people speaking Yiddish to each other. There was a Yiddish singer who sang in Yiddish and who spoke Yiddish as her native language. She sang really traditionally, and I didn't get it. It was -- high squeaky voice with all this 32:00krekhtsn [whines] and I thought, What? I had classical music in my ear, so I didn't quite understand that for a while. And then, I really got it at some point. So, there was a bit of Yiddish, yeah.

ZD:Is that what you mean by traditionally, in a high --

PMS:Well, she was singing like Nehama Lifshits, that style that people heard on records. That's what I have in my ear as the traditional Yiddish --

ZD:Could you give us an example of that?

PMS:(singing) "Gvald, vu nemt men, oy, vu nemt men, vu nemt men [Oh, where do you get, oy, where do you get, where do you get]." She sang with this high --

ZD:That was really --

PMS:I have a video somewhere. (laughs)

ZD:So, that covers, a little bit, what the attitude was like. There was a --

PMS:Yeah.

ZD:So, there was definitely more of a positive attitude, then?

PMS:Oh, yes, very much so. It was positive music.

ZD:So, now, let's move a little bit towards discussing your work. How did you become interested in music?

PMS:I could have been a musician in a past life. I was born with interest to music. My mother was a singer. My grandfather played button accordion. My aunt sang, my family always sang at family gatherings. And as soon as I had big enough fingers to find some notes on the piano, I started playing and then, eventually, I started to accompany my relatives and my mother. I think -- I had this musical heart since I was born, I don't know. And then I made it my profession. There was no question for me what I wanted to do in my life.

ZD:It's amazing.

PMS:Yeah.

ZD:And then, you told me a little bit about your training already. Did you have any mentors or particular influences when you were learning?

PMS:Yeah. Well, you mean Jewish musical --

ZD:Any kind of music.

PMS:Well, my first big influence was Mozart. (laughs)

ZD:Okay.

PMS:I remember -- moment I was ten years old and we had records, vinyls at home, and we had this Mozart 40th symphony, and I put it on, I didn't know what it was. (sings without words) Now people think it's a mobile phone tune. So, I played that record and just tears came out of my eyes from nowhere. So, that was my big influence. I listened to Mozart a lot in my childhood. Then Mahler, then you had Strauss, then Wagner, Shostakovich. Mahler is big for me. That's in terms of people who influenced me, but not -- I didn't know them in person.

ZD:Right.

PMS:Yeah. But then, in terms of my Yiddish influences, Yiddish -- Jewish music influences, six people. I counted.

ZD:Right, okay.

PMS:I thought about it because of the Yidstock festival happening at the Yiddish Book Center right now and because of the talk I'm going to give the day after tomorrow about this subject. So, I actually thought about what I can mention, who I can mention. Six people: Leonid Sonts, who was the band leader of Simcha band I mentioned today, who was an activist, who spoke Yiddish, who had a golden heart. He loved sharing. He cried when he was playing "A yidishe mame [A Jewish mother]," and he had to learn because he didn't know much. He was born in Ukraine. He had some memories of klezmer music, but he kind of lost it and then he found it. So, he was rediscovering it for himself as we were learning from him. So, he led our youth band for a while, and then he let us lead it and just 36:00gave us advice. But he was the starting, the initial -- now, I recognized that this was what I wanted to do at his concert. That's one. Adrienne Cooper, Klezfest, Saint Petersburg, 1999. That was my first Klezfest, where Leonid Sonts recommended me to go, and I must say I wasn't only interested in Yiddish music. I was interested in Hebrew, Israeli, all sorts. And I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do. I arranged a lot of Israeli tunes for four parts, for my quartet then. And I thought maybe I shouldn't just do Yiddish. Maybe there's something different and all that stuff. And when I went to Saint Petersburg and Adrienne Cooper was there and I heard her sing Yiddish songs the way she sang, something 37:00happened on a very deep level, because she actually sang them as if she was singing to me. Just she was singing to the depths of my soul. It was such a direct, deep contact. And the way she sang -- she had knowledge, she had huge background. She spoke Hebrew, she grew up with this music. She carried that culture. So, she showed me how it can be sung, and she showed me how it can be personal, not just a museum thing that we try to revive. She showed to me how it can be my personal culture, and the songs that I can sing about myself, although they're folk songs or theater songs or anything else. So, that's Adrienne Cooper. Zalmen Mlotek, who came with Adrienne, they both came to teach us in 38:00Saint Petersburg. So, we had all these young people, coming from Uzbekistan, Moldova, Ukraine, all over Russia to study this music. It was this huge growth of interest. And they were our first influences. They were our first people to teach us. So, Zalmen Mlotek, Folksbiene Yiddish Theatre, who was a teacher-teacher. He actually taught some technique, some tricks, some specifically Yiddish things about music. That's three. Shall I carry on?

ZD:Yeah, go for it.

PMS:Frank London, Yevpatoriya, Ukraine, Crimea -- should I say Russia now? It was Ukraine then, 2000. I loved his open mind. He really impressed me, because he wasn't just carrying the tradition, but he was making it modern and appealing to us young people. And the freedom with which he dealt with this music -- he 39:00could just take it apart, throw it together again, put some other styles and notes and chords and stuff into it. So, I was amazed, actually. Wow, you can do this with klezmer, okay. Merlin Shepherd, my husband. (laughter) What can I say? His playing. The way he played clarinet -- I actually copied a lot of vocal tricks from his clarinet style. I hadn't heard anyone play clarinet like this, ever, on tapes, on recordings, on telly, anywhere in Russia. And he played -- something was happening on this big spiritual level when I was listening to him. So, that's deep. That's deep. It's still there. Lorin Sklamberg. I just heard his voice and that was it. Again, the subtlety, the beauty, the spirituality. 40:00Language and voice. It's these primary things that they touch. Something primary about the voice. Using your own body as the instrument, sounding instrument. I believe that there's something very deep to it. So, there, six.

ZD:Those were your influences.

PMS:Um-hm.

ZD:Can you describe a particularly meaningful performance for you?

PMS:Of my own or of me seeing someone?

ZD:Of your own.

PMS:My own. Meaningful performance. Hm. Well, they're all meaningful.

ZD:Do any stand out?

PMS:There were performances that indicated a certain shift in me. For example, when I was young, I started performing with the Simcha band. There were a couple of times when I -- not only I had a profound joy of sharing the songs I knew with the audience, but I also felt that was something I wanted to -- I felt really comfortable with it, that I did a couple of performances, and I felt really comfortable onstage. So, I thought, It's not just something I want to do as a hobby. I want actually to be a professional singer. There were a couple of these. Then, later on, I would say, you know what? Murcia, in Spain. The Merlin Shepherd Quartet, I was part of it. So, we went to perform at the Three Cultures Festival in the center of this beautiful Spanish city. Islamic, Christian, and Jewish cultures. And we sang and we played, and there was one number that I did 42:00on my own, not with the quartet, but they all had a little rest and I sang, accompanying myself. I sang "Avinu malkeinu [Hebrew: Our father, our king]." Not a Yiddish song. I sang "Avinu malkeinu," and I remember an interesting feeling, then, because it was a prayer. It was outdoors. Performing outdoors can be difficult, especially if you're singing something slow, meaningful, sometimes quiet, that requires focus from the audience, and it's not jumpy and fast. And the audience were listening, and I was singing with full commitment to it as a prayer. And I remember just the sense of actually channeling something and just being a vessel for that song. It's on my YouTube -- the face of my YouTube channel. It's still there. But that sense of channeling something much greater 43:00than myself through a song came then, 2009, I think, in Spain. Now, since then, I try, every performance, to make every performance into that spiritual experience for myself and for my audiences.

ZD:It's amazing. And you've also traveled around the world. And as a performer of Yiddish music, of klezmer music, what was it like, for example, to go to -- I believe you went to Iceland?

PMS:Yes. Yes, I went to Iceland. I was booked by a classical choir.

ZD:Okay.

PMS:A classical choir. The leader of that choir is an organist in the church, and he conducts several choirs. And he invited me just because he wanted 44:00something different for his choir. They have these occasional workshops with people who carry different cultures. So, they wanted something different, and I went there. There was nobody Jewish there. It was just Icelandic people. And we sang for two days nonstop, and then we gave a performance of these Yiddish songs. I made some arrangements for the choir, so soprano, alto, tenor, and bass with splits up to twelve. They were a great group of people to work with -- of a high standard as a choir, musically. It's a pleasure to not just educate people about Yiddish culture, but to create something musically advanced.

ZD:Right.

PMS:So, it was fantastic. They hadn't heard anything about Yiddish or klezmer, no. Not much. So, we talked about krekhtsn and about all sorts of ornaments and phrasing and how to pronounce, and that sometimes there are syllables 45:00without a vowel, so you say, "Gnn, gnn" and it's a syllable and you sing it like that. That was fun. That was good. That was interesting, sharing something from scratch to people who had no expectations, like a blank page. It was amazing. They loved it. They loved it.

ZD:That is amazing.

PMS:Yeah.

ZD:And there was another one, another tour that you did. Could you tell me about when you taught Yiddish speakers in São Paulo?

PMS:Wow (laughs) -- not only taught. We also performed for them. That was a big moment for me, actually. It was one of these memorable performances. Before I taught them, I think Merlin and I gave a dual concert to them. And that's when I realized that these people speak Yiddish. We sang to this elderly community 46:00Sunday club, afternoon event. They go there every Sunday, I think, or once a month, maybe. And I sang in Yiddish and they reacted to text, they laughed. They understood. I realized straight away that they were actually reacting to text. So, that was fun. I feel a bit insecure with Yiddish, so I had to -- they said they understood everything, so that was good. That was -- and then, I taught them a workshop in Yiddish song. So, what I tend to do is bring not the most famous songs. So they hadn't heard the songs. And also, because there isn't much Yiddish singing happening there now, it was good, it was interesting for them to go back to this culture in a formal workshop situation that they don't do it there. So, they loved sharing. They made their comments on how it should be sung, how it should be pronounced. And they would say it like this, and this is 47:00not correct. It's all -- it was fun. So, their singing was just normal singing. They didn't have any of this specific melisma and ornaments in their singing, but -- that they had more sense of Yiddishkayt. There was that, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we had this whole discussion of what varnitshkes [filled dumpling] is, how do you cook varnitshkes.

ZD:How do you cook varnitshkes?

PMS:Well, there is the Russian way, the Ukrainian way, the Yiddish way. (laughs)

ZD:What is your prescribed way?

PMS:Well, the way we did it was water, egg, sometimes milk. Usually just water, egg, salt, black pepper, wheat flour. So, you make it into this flat thing. You take a glass, a glass glass, and you make circles in that sheet, and then you fill in these circles with mashed potatoes, chopped onion, mushrooms, cherries, 48:00cottage cheese, minced meat, and we usually had a surprise one in this pot, just garlic. So, whoever gets this one is the lucky one. That's how we did it. (laughter)

ZD:That's a -- (laughter) so, another thing we often think about is that performing artists have historically played an important role in what is often referred to as the revival of Yiddish culture. What is your take on the idea of cultural revival?

PMS:I think there is no revival. I think unless we have context in which this culture can exist, we can't really revive it. Well, it will never be the same. 49:00We've moved on. We're in the twenty-first century. There are no places where, in secular environment, people just speak Yiddish as their man language. Not that I know of. So, they usually speak Yiddish as well as other languages, and it's universal. And I also think that, looking at it from a higher point of view, culture, music, ethnic cultures generally in the world now, I think they're all kind of disappearing and mixing together, merging together. And I don't know about even the state of music as a genre of human entertainment in fifty years from now. I think we should look at bigger subjects than just a revival of one specific culture if we want that culture to survive. Cultural in general is -- there's a big question mark about culture.

ZD:All right.

PMS:What's happening to us? Live music? Less and less live music, more and more recorded music. Less and less interest in musical music. Music with a meaning. So, no, I don't think there is a revival. Well, I think we've gone past the top point, certainly in Britain. This top point of interest to this music was something like maybe ten years ago, when we had Klezfest, and a lot of Jewish and non-Jewish people, younger people, were into it. So, we had this klezmer hype. And now, it's become -- it's taken the place in world music, and now there is gypsy something else that is trending. Not klezmer. And in Germany, as well, there was a rise in interest and -- but people are interested in different -- it's like fashion.

ZD:Right.

PMS:It became fashionable for a while, and now it's taken its place, but this is it. I'm not too optimistic. We do our best, though, yeah.

ZD:And what is the role performing artists play or don't play in the transmission of culture?

PMS:Big role. Oh, well, like I said, the Kazan Jewish community came together because of a klezmer band. That is bringing a whole community together and giving their culture back to these people, and sharing that culture with all the neighbor cultures, coexisting in one place. And I think it's more important than any formal measures, like putting certain things into school programs. I had a strange experience of teaching English folklore in an English school. They 52:00couldn't find anyone better? They found me to teach English folk songs to English kids? Me? (laughs) So, I had to do my research, and I taught English song-- the idea was to bring English singing culture back to children in schools, and I worked for that program -- that was Glyndebourne Education, for a year. And I realized that it wouldn't go any further because children would learn folk songs from me, go home, maybe sing these songs to their parents. But at home, nobody would sing these songs or support them, or grandparents wouldn't sing these songs with the grandchildren. So, no context. Dies out. So, I don't think we can artificially bring anything back, although we can still collect all these little single people who are interested in this, little communities here and there. As artists, I think we can do more than all the formal things, all 53:00the non-abstract ways of motivating people.

ZD:Right. So, are you saying that there could be a sort of -- not a cultural revival, per se, but having such events -- Klezfest, for example, provides a space in which people can connect to a culture --

PMS:Oh, yeah.

ZD:-- but not necessarily revive it.

PMS:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

ZD:I'm sorry, that was a leading question.

PMS:Yeah, yeah, right.

ZD:I mean, actually, do you consider yourself an activist?

PMS:Oh, yes. Oh, yes, of course.

ZD:In what way?

PMS:I'm on a mission! I'm on a mission! An activist of Yiddish music or just 54:00generally an activist?

ZD:I mean, it's up for you to decide how you define yourself.

PMS:Well, I'll start with how I see my role in this culture in particular. I would like to share it with as many people as possible, which is why I love it when classical choirs invite me to do something for them, or when British schools invite me to teach them some ethnically different cultures, like Russian and Yiddish. So, I do see my role as somebody who breaks boundaries and brings something to people who have no knowledge, and sometimes have stereotypical preconceptions of what Jews are like and all that, what Jewish music is. So, I like breaking stereotypes. I like sharing this with people. And I also like to encourage -- sometimes you get one or two young people who'd get interested in 55:00this, so there'll be somebody to carry this, as long as it lasts. As long as it lasts, as long as there are some Yiddish singers doing this, it's pleasing, it's good. It's a beautiful culture. It has to be there. It's worth saving, as long as we can. But in terms of being an activist, not just in the way of promoting Yiddish culture, I would say as a musician, I see myself as somebody who brings -- I'd like to see myself as somebody who brings some light, some joy, some fun, some beauty to this world through music. Things that I can't necessarily say to everyone in the audience face-to-face, but that I can just share as an energy, as a note, as a chord, as a vibration with every member in the audience. So, in 56:00that sense, I feel that music is a great vessel for opening people's hearts up. And I do feel that. I do feel that. And I work with choirs, as well, so this is something that happens on a regular basis. I build a relationship with people through music. But I see music as a vessel of doing something much greater.

ZD:Thank you, that's really nice. So, yeah, you teach. And what are the challenges when it comes to teaching Yiddish music, for example?

PMS:Not too many people interested in it. Not enough, I want more.

ZD:Okay.

PMS:And also, this issue I mentioned before, that most Jewish people are not interested in their own culture. I would say that's the most painful issue for me, that Jews themselves are not interested in their own culture. And I would 57:00study classical music and then study some gypsy music or Balkan music, but not Yiddish. So, that is something I still have to come to terms with when I -- yeah, when I deal with them.

ZD:Do you have any speculation as to why that might be?

PMS:Oh, I've asked people. It's the culture of the Holocaust. It's the culture of death, I heard. That's what people say. It's too painful to go back to it. It's not good enough or interesting enough musically. What else? All sorts of answers, and I think there is something to do with the Holocaust and the pain, but I think it's also time to let go and not see it as the culture. There is a big issue of the Holocaust being the most popular subject when you talk about Ashkenazi Jews. Ashkenazi Jews, Holocaust. That's the first thing that comes to 58:00mind, and that's a stereotype that's been put into people's minds over these years. And I think it's now quite unhealthy. It's been so long, and I'd like that to change. I don't know how it can, because it's still much easier to get money for a memorial, for a crying and sobbing and hugging each other Holocaust memory event, show than for building a new choir, putting Klezfest together, or something that would keep this culture alive. It's much easier to bury it and cry for it and get money for it than to get money for something to keep it alive, I find.

ZD:Whew.

PMS:Yes.

ZD:And in your time as a teacher, have you found yourself becoming a mentor in any way?

PMS:Can you explain to me what a mentor means? It's just an English language thing. Is it more than a teacher? Is it like a --

ZD:It's --

PMS:-- one-to-one or something?

ZD:Yeah, it's a little bit more personal, almost when you serve as someone's -- not only inspiration, but as a personal teacher, someone who you can go to for advice, who helps guide your way into --

PMS:Not openly and not obviously. But I think -- well, I have done one-to-one, and I know that a lot of people, quite a few people come to my choirs because they learn from me not just music, but they learn something else: lifestyle, being, positivity and all these other things. And people do ask for advice. So, yes, but I don't really like working one-to-one. It's just not my talent. My 60:00talent is to work with a group of people and bring them together as one and give something to them, and that sharing that -- I don't like to be a formal mentor, really.

ZD:That's fine.

PMS:Yeah.

ZD:So, I mean, you mentioned that you think there's a trend of klezmer, for example, being a little bit like a trend in fashion. Do you have any idea why that might be? Why interest is declining, if it's declining?

PMS:Human beings have a short attention span, (laughter) and we are living faster and faster. So, we had waltz, that was popular for decades. And then, we had, I don't know, we had disco when I was a youngster. And then, we had this and that, so these things lasted for a bit longer, and then they got shorter and shorter and shorter. So, klezmer just was one of these. I think it's just a 61:00normal human pattern to get interested in one thing and then find a new toy, and then find another toy, and keep switching.

ZD:And so, these are kind of reflective questions. Have you noted any other trends or changes in the time you've been involved with Yiddish, among students, among colleagues?

PMS:Change in interest or change generally? A change --

ZD:Change generally.

PMS:Not really. It's the same type, if you can say that, the same type of person who comes to this music. And the difference that I've noticed is probably to do with me moving from one country to another and me being younger and being 62:00involved in this klezmer revival in former Soviet Union, and what my background and my friends' background -- and then, the people that I work with now. Otherwise, I think it's kind of the same patterns, the same things that bring people to this music, yeah, I --

ZD:What is that? Would you like to --

PMS:Well, there are people who come to this music because it's their parents' language, because it's their bloodline, because of the unresolved Holocaust issues, because of wanting to be different, because of all the socialist motivation, this big socialist and Yiddish -- there's a socialist group in London, they're quite active. They come to my choir. They feel that there is a huge connection, obviously. That, and what else? Just these people who are slightly marginal, usually different. They have something different about -- they don't want to mix with a crowd -- come to these workshops, seminars, 63:00festivals, events, yeah. They're just different.

ZD:Huh. And from your perspective, what is the place of Yiddish within Jewish culture and within broader culture, too?

PMS:There is a place. It's not too big. I'd like it to be bigger. Realistically speaking, I can't see how it can be more present. It's a marginal place. It's a place of developing individuality. So, when people come to this culture, they're already, as I said, they're already different, and they develop their special 64:00sense of being Jewish, but different Jewish. And it's a place of finding your roots but not being part of mainstream Jewish community. I don't know. There is some place for it, I hope. Or, for non-Jewish people, to study something different and to like something that is not their own, but still find common ground there. I don't know if there's any bigger place for it, unfortunately. That's where it is now, it's -- yeah.

ZD:I personally think that's a -- if its place to help people find themselves, that's a pretty good place to be.

PMS:You know what? I must say that in America it's probably quite different. I must say, because I deal with mostly European people and sometimes -- I've been to Brazil four times, and I come -- or Iceland or, I don't know, mainly Europe. 65:00So, I sense that in America, there is much more Yiddish life. I know there is much more Yiddish life in America. So, coming here and working here and seeing all these colleagues of mine doing so many things and so many people going for Yiddish events and visiting here is wonderful, is encouraging.

ZD:So, you've been to the -- yeah, there's this geographic difference. Why do you think it's so different?

PMS:Well, there are more Jews here. (laughs) And they kept their culture. They weren't disconnected from it, like in Europe. So, I think that that's very important. So, here, they're not embarrassed to be Ashkenazi Jews. I don't know. Maybe they are, I don't know. But in Europe, there is a bit of that. And I think, oh, yeah, there is just a big place with lots of Jews, so you are 66:00fortunate to have more Jewish life here.

ZD:And what about Israel?

PMS:You know what? I've been working in this field since I was seventeen, professionally. I have never been to Israel in a professional engagement. I've never been. I don't know. I don't have much connection to Israel. There are, apparently, festivals. My husband is going to Tzfat festival, and part of it is klezmer music. So, I don't really have much connection to Israel. I have relatives who live there, but I don't feel attached to it. I don't feel that it has any special meaning to me or cultural attraction. So, it just -- it's a country.

ZD:Interesting. Just in terms of Jewish population and interest in klezmer?

PMS:Well, it's an interesting country in terms of Jewish population and klezmer. Well, look at Germany. There's another country that has, I think, the biggest number of klezmer and Yiddish concerts in the world per capita. Germany. Now, if you look at Israel, look at Germany -- I've worked in Germany lots. I'm going back to Germany in August, I'm going to Germany in October. I have work and work and work and work in Germany, for Germans. Israel? Jewish population? Never worked there. So, that shows how much interest in Yiddish and klezmer there is amongst Israeli Jews. And, say, Germany, for their reasons --

ZD:Interesting. And what do you see as the future of Yiddish?

PMS:Every time I'm asked that question, I go silent. I don't know what to say.

ZD:That's all --

PMS:No context, no environment to speak Yiddish. No necessity, no motivation to speak Yiddish means that there may be not much future. Our Londoner Yiddish speakers come together once a year for the song and language school, summer school, for a week. They have this bliss of talking to each other in Yiddish. Otherwise, there are little circles. Like, we'll have this Yiddish svive [gathering] at somebody's -- Khayke Beruriah Wiegand, who is an Oxford teacher of Yiddish, in Oxford University. She brings people in her house, she brings them together. They drink vodka and they sing songs. (laughter) And that's a tiny little circle, and there they speak Yiddish.

ZD:Right.

PMS:But it's mostly people, not very young people -- they have a few 69:00enthusiastic young people who go there, but they're rare people, they're special, different people. So, not too much. Well, I'm trying my best. I have this Yiddish choir in London. It's growing. It's growing, so maybe another ten years. I don't know how long I'm going to do it for, but I'm hoping to bring something together, at least for a few years. And just put it into a bigger context of musical interaction with people, sharing cultures with Jews and non-Jews. So, we aren't just talking Yiddish culture. We're talking human consciousness developing through music, which is what I do.

ZD:Okay, well, we're nearing the end of our time, but I'd like to ask you if there are any other topics you'd like to touch on? If there's any other stories you have or --

PMS:Oh, playing, yeah, I mentioned this in the written paper: playing Yiddish 70:00songs for Boris Yeltsin --

ZD:Oh!

PMS:-- for his second election was fun. In Tatarstan. So, Boris Yeltsin, the Communist Party leader, the president of Russia --- was he? In nineteen ninety-something, he went through whole of Russia to promote himself as -- for the second period of his governing. So, he came to Tatarstan, which is a big, important oil-making republic, as part of Russia, and he talks to the people of Tatarstan. There was this huge field with Tatar snacks and games, and people dressed up and singing and all that. And then there was a private party where Boris Yeltsin and his wife, Naina, were -- sat down at a beautiful table with fantastic fish. There was a pool with live fish, and it was cooked for them, 71:00whichever fish they pointed at. (laughter) And there were two bands: a Tatar band and us, Simcha, the Jewish band of Tatarstan. And we played for them. And I felt that was an interesting experience, because Yeltsin and his wife were genuinely interested to hear "Tumbalalaika [Play the balalaika]" and all the stuff we offered them. And after their lunch and drinking with the president of Tatarstan, we have this, they came up to us and they gave us hugs and kisses, and they thanked us. And they said that they hadn't heard anything like this before. So, I thought, Well, that's a good tick in the box, singing Yiddish to the president of Russia. That was good. (laughs)

ZD:That's amazing. That is.

PMS:Yeah. (laughs)

ZD:That's crazy.

PMS:(laughs) That was a clash, in Tatarstan: Russian president drinking vodka, 72:00and Yiddish band. How good is that? (laughs)

ZD:That's a good one. Okay, is there anything else?

PMS:Oh, any other stories? A festival in Sheshory Podolia, in Ukraine, 2006 or maybe 2007. I went as part of the Merlin Shepherd Capella, which is my husband's band, all-stars from the former Soviet Union, Moldova, Ukraine, and Russia, a couple of guys who immigrated to Germany, but they still represented Russia and Ukraine. So, eleven of us, in the field. Ukrainian festival of their full culture. People wearing Ukrainian folk shirts. Quite nationalistic, as you can imagine. This is where they let their steam out --

ZD:Right.

PMS:-- being Ukrainian and loving their culture, and eating Ukrainian food, and doing all these -- special Ukrainian fighting, special Ukrainian eating, special 73:00Ukrainian music, folk crafts and arts and all that. And we were one of these different bands brought into this festival, and they loved it. And these Ukrainians danced to our horas and shers [Jewish dance done in groups]. And I taught a nigunim [melodies] session in the field, in Ukraine. Now, that's really near the origins of nigunim. And there were a hundred people sitting in that field, in huge circle, and me, teaching them these nigunim, and it was great. Now, mostly Ukrainian people singing nigunim in Ukrainian field at a Ukrainian festival and loving it, I think this is meaningful. This is important. I think this is how we should all be.

ZD:Yeah, I think so, too. Okay, so this is the closing question. What advice do you have for aspiring artists and the future generations?

PMS:Listen to your heart. Do your best. Be honest. Don't try to twist your integrity to suit the crowd, to be fashionable. Just be yourself, and then everything will be great. Everything will be fine.

ZD:Well, thank you very much.

[END OF INTERVIEW