BENJY FOX-ROSEN ORAL HISTORY

PAULINE KATZ: This is Pauline Katz and today is December 30th, 2010. I'm here at KlezKamp in the Catskills with Benjy Fox-Rosen, and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Benjy Fox-Rosen, do I have your permission to record this interview?

BENJY FOX-ROSEN: Certainly.

PK:Thank you very much. To begin with, I'd like to ask you about where you come from -- your family.

BFR:Where my family comes --

PK:Yeah.

BFR:Okay, grandparents, parents -- okay, grandparents. We'll start back there. Four grandparents. Three of my grandparents -- okay, two of my grandparents are 1:00from Poland. One is from L'vov. My grandfather's from L'vov, my grandmother who's married to him is from Krakow. My other side of the family, my mother's side of the family, which are more yekish [German Jewish] -- my grandmother is from Dortmund, Germany. Her family came to Dortmund following the Spanish Inquisition in the early 1500s. And my grandfather, who was from Vienna, his parents were from Galicia and were part of the wave of Ostjuden [German: Jews from Eastern Europe] who moved to Vienna looking for work around the 1920s or so. My great-grandfather, so of the Galician Jews who moved to Vienna, moved to Vienna, was very interested in being in the Yiddish theater. Was not successful whatsoever and mostly spent his time in cafés drinking coffee and reading the 2:00newspaper. His wife, my great-grandmother, had a store below the building that they lived in. So, that's them. Of my grandparents, none of the -- I never heard Yiddish, I guess, related to that, from any of them. My grandmother grew up in a Hasidic family, but very wealthy Hasidic family and was the first generation that the women were educated in Polish schools and the men were not. The men had a traditional education -- and her father was in the tanning business, in the hides business. And the men were -- spoke Yiddish and Polish and spoke Polish with -- at least the younger women. The boys spoke Yiddish amongst themselves and Polish for business and the women really didn't speak Yiddish very much, according to my -- this is what my grandmother says. She learned Yiddish when she was in Israel. She came to Palestine in 1944, I believe, and was there and 3:00learned Yiddish babysitting her cousins there. She's from Krakow, though, but -- and just because she says she didn't speak Yiddish, I don't quite believe her 'cause she was around it and she was in the Krakow Ghetto and she spoke Yiddish but she didn't feel like she spoke it, I guess. She was surrounded by Krakow's Yiddish cultural life, so -- and specifically, she really is obsessed with Mordkhe Gebirtig and has passed that on to me, some of her interest in Gebirtig. And she knew some of his songs as a child and she also learned many more of his songs living in the Krakow Ghetto. She said the young people, especially, used to sing them. And that's her. My grandfather from L'vov didn't speak very much. 4:00Very quiet guy. Was educated in a Hebrew gymnasium where all subjects were taught in Hebrew. And I don't know if he spoke Yiddish or not, but he -- my grandparents spoke Polish amongst themselves when they didn't want us to understand. And then, on the other side of the family, my grandfather from Vienna and his wife, my grandmother, spoke German amongst themselves when they didn't want the kids to understand. But really, actually, didn't speak much German after they came to the United States. Even though they met in a German Jewish hiking club in Los Angeles in 1940, they still didn't really speak German to each other. And I asked my grandfather, "Hey, do you speak -- do you understand Yiddish?" He says, "No, no, I don't really understand Yiddish," even though his father -- and I said, "Well, did your father really learn to speak 5:00German well or" -- he said, "Oh, not quite. His German wasn't so great and when he came to America, his English wasn't so great, either." So yeah, so that's the grandparents. I guess I'll talk about --

PK:Now, actually, how do you know the stories about them?

BFR:My grandmother wrote a book called "My Lost World." Sara Rosen, without an H. It was published maybe fifteen years ago, and she talks about this a lot. My grandfather, who's from Vienna -- also, he's still alive. He's just turned ninety and we talk about this stuff, also. Yeah, I'm very interested, and I've been very interested in Vienna at that point in time, especially in terms of the Ostjuden coming to Vienna. Very interested in their impact on the city and 6:00whatnot. So, yeah.

PK:So, where did you grow up?

BFR:In Los Angeles, California. So, I guess I'll talk briefly about my parents, as well. My father grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He was born in Israel. My grandparents met in Palestine, were married in Palestine, had their first two children there, and then moved to New York in 1956. Right after that war of 1956, they moved to New York. So, my father was born in Israel but moved to New York when he was about three or four years -- three years old, and grew up on the Upper West Side. Grew up Orthodox. Studied -- spoke Yiddish with his grandmother. Didn't speak Yiddish with his parents. Spoke English -- or Hebrew 7:00when he was a kid with his parents and then English with his parents. Studied Talmud and then was beginning to do a PhD in early rabbinic literature and then dropped out of that program and then started working on Wall Street technologies, blah-blah-blah. So, that's what he's done. My mother, who grew up in Fullerton, California, in Orange County in California, is a rabbi. She was the fourth woman rabbi in the history of the world. (laughs) She was ordained in 1973 from Hebrew Union College and she studied in, I believe, in New York -- or at least she finished her studies in New York and then worked in New York for a while, met my father there. They were married in 1980 or '79, and then, once my 8:00brother was born, lived in New York for a year and then moved to Los Angeles in 1982. So, I was born in Los Angeles in 1984 and grew up in Los Angeles. My education, I guess, in terms of -- the one thing I didn't write on on the thing was about summer camp, which I'll get into later, which is very interesting. I went to a Solomon Schechter Day School, elementary school, and started learning Hebrew, I guess, at a relatively young age. I think the language programs in Solomon Schechter Day Schools are atrocious. I could barely speak Hebrew by the time I was fourteen. I guess I learned it around -- I was able to speak by the time I was fifteen. But nonetheless, so had that sort of Conservative education. We went to a Conservative synagogue, even though my mom was a Reform rabbi and 9:00worked at a different synagogue. But I think she was very concerned about making a separation between home, between our family's religious life and community and her professional life.

PK:Can you describe your family's religious life?

BFR:Yeah, I would say it is somewhere -- definitely within the Conservative framework, meaning we went to a Conservative synagogue, kept kosher in the home, kept kosher out of the house but still ate at non-kosher restaurants but ate vegetarian. Let's see. My parents would speak Hebrew when they didn't want us to understand. (laughs) Didn't work very long. And there were a lot of interesting inconsistencies, like we would -- Shabbos was very important but we would drive up to get out of town after Shabbat dinner on Friday night, even though it's 10:00driving on Shabbos. But it's okay, 'cause whatever. So, funny things like that. And then, I went to a summer camp, Camp Alonim in Southern California at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute, which is officially an unaffiliated institute. But I would say it's sort of a Labor cultural Zionist summer camp or at least it has those roots -- I would say more in cultural Zionism. So, Israeli folk dance was very, very big at the summer camp, as well as singing, like, American summer camp songs. American Jewish summer camp songs, rather.

PK:Such as?

BFR:Such as a lot of the Reform movement melodies that are popular, I think, at Reform movement summer camps. It's not great music. I mean, it's pretty bad music. It's horrible music. But I would say, actually, the Israeli dance culture 11:00at the camp was pretty amazing. You had kids who were fifteen who knew a hundred dances by heart and it was -- I think that was what that camp did most successfully. In terms of the actual educational component, in terms of actually learning history, not so good. But sort of like the feeling of, Okay, this is a Jewish culture or something like that, I think the agenda was more, This is Jewish culture, as opposed to, This is a Jewish culture. But I came to understand that a little differently, I would say, later. And then, for high school -- middle school and high school -- I went to Milken Community High School in Los Angeles, which is a community school, which means what, specifically? Many people of a different affiliation.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

PK:I'd like to ask you a little more about your home and your community, your 12:00Jewish community in Los Angeles.

BFR:Okay. So, my parents davened at the library minyen [prayer group] of Temple Beth Am, which is like this minyen that is an alternate minyen in the synagogue. And it had no official leader. It was a democratically-run Conservative minyen. Mostly egalitarian but the more I think about it, actually, a sort of antiquated egalitarian. But never mind. And there were a lot of rabbis who davened there, people -- so, a lot of professional Jews. Academic professionals, rabbis, museum historians, blah-blah-blah. So, my parents' friends were people who were there, so I'd say there were a couple of families that they were very close with who we 13:00had -- we'd celebrate a lot -- we had Shabbat dinner or holiday dinners with them very, very often. So, that was like three or four families including us: the Ellensons, the Ackermans -- no, the Ellensons -- well, a bunch of families. And we would do holidays with them and -- or the kids were around the same age and we'd all sort of play together, basically. So, that was the community, I would say, mostly.

PK:And who were your friends?

BFR:Who were my friends?

PK:In general, in the Jewish community and the non-Jewish community?

BFR:As a child.

PK:Um-hm.

BFR:All right. These are the things my therapist asks me. (laughs) Very funny. My friends -- well, in my family community, we played with a lot of these kids from these families. And then, I went to a small school. So, there were not a 14:00lot of people. I had one good friend who I'm still friendly with, yeah.

PK:And how'd you get into music?

BFR:How'd I get into music? I began playing music when I was -- well, I had piano lessons when I was a kid, which I did not do very well on. I didn't really take to the piano, unfortunately. I wish I had now, 'cause now I'm a horrible pianist and it's all my fault. But I started on the piano and then I played trumpet briefly and then I picked up the bass -- couple years later, because I started playing piano when I was six and then quit when I was about nine or ten. And then, when I was eleven, I found a guitar in my closet, in the back of the closet, and it was my mom's guitar. And I said, Oh, this is great, I'll play the guitar. So, we got some strings, put it on, and I started playing. And my brother took it and -- older brother, two-and-a-half years older, also a 15:00musician, Avi Fox-Rosen. And he took it and started playing and was much better than I was, almost immediately. So, he started playing guitar when I was eleven and then about a year or so later, he said, "Hey, why don't you play bass?" I was like, Okay, four strings, I can handle that. You play one note at a time; this sounds really good. So, then I started playing bass, I got a bass, and then I started playing the guitar. No, then I started playing bass at that point in time and then I started playing upright bass a little bit later. And actually, my best friend growing up, this kid named Ben Branfin -- at his bar mitzvah, there was a klezmer trio that played after lunch. They were at the reception or something, and the bassist was an upright bassist and he let me play his bass 'cause I said, "Oh, hey, can I try playing that?" And so, that was actually one 16:00of my first times playing upright bass, was sort of a funny coincidence. And the teacher who I'd been studying with, my parents said, Okay, you want to play bass, you take lessons. So, I started, starting with this guy who also played upright bass and he sort of encouraged me to make the switch. So then, after my bar mitzvah, I got an upright bass, which was wonderful, and started playing from there, primarily playing jazz. I was interested in jazz and blues and -- mostly jazz. And then, later on, I guess when I was about sixteen, fifteen or sixteen, my parents have a friend, David Ackerman, who's come to KlezKamp a couple times, actually, and plays mandolin and recorders. He would come over to our house on Shabbat afternoons, guess for about a year-and-a-half or two years, and he would play klezmer tunes with my brother and I. So, it was like reading out of the complete klezmer. And he would also have Israeli tunes and he'd play 17:00those, too.

PK:So, what was your early exposure to klezmer like?

BFR:I guess my early exposure was at bar mitzvahs, I guess. Most bar mitzvahs didn't have -- that I went to I guess didn't really have a band that could really play Jewish. But my friend, Ben, had this one band at his reception, which I remember. And then, I also remember, actually, at summer camp, they had -- the Brandeis-Bardin Institute has a klezmer band or had a klezmer band for some period of time. I don't know if they recorded or anything but they came and they played at the camp. And I remember that. Also, I remember sitting on the floor and listening to this bass player play and thought, Oh, that guy's all right, that music's pretty cool, and sort of got into that. My parents gave me, I guess, when I was maybe thirteen, gave my brother and I a couple of CDs, the Klezmatics, "Jews with Horns," and the New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars. And I didn't really like the Klezmatics disc at first. I was, like, What is this 18:00stuff? The first track on that album, "The Man in the --" (Singing), "I met a man in a hat with a tan, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da," and I was like, Oh, what is this? And I had had this vision of the singer being this skinny, hunched-over Hasidic guy. Little did I know that it was Lorin Sklamberg, who's not that at all and who've --

PK:What did you think when you first met him?

BFR:Oh, (laughs) I love Lorin, he's wonderful! And so, from there, I guess I didn't really like that CD so much and then listened to it, I guess, five years later and was, Oh, okay. I started to understand what they were doing. And so, I guess those were some of the first exposures to klezmer music. And then, later on, I moved to New York to study jazz at the New School. I moved to New York in 2002 and I studied -- I guess pretty quickly into that jazz program, I said, 19:00Okay, I think probably playing straight-ahead jazz is not really interesting for me. I'm interested in improvised and experimental music and I'm interested in folk music, actually. So, those are the two sort of things that I became -- and I sort of realized, Okay, these are my two interests.

PK:And where did you think you were gonna go with them when you were in school?

BFR:With --

PK:With your interests?

BFR:With those interests? Well, they developed while I was in school, sort of fairly slowly. I did a double degree program, so I was in school for five years, which was a little bit too long. And after, I guess, two-and-a-half years, I said, Okay, I need to do a semester abroad, otherwise I'm going to go insane. So, I went to Buenos Aires for six months and studied there. I just studied Spanish, which was fabulous. And I also took classical bass lessons there with 20:00an excellent teacher. And also had a trio there, a jazz trio, and did -- wouldn't say jazz trio. Improvising trio. And we played quite a bit and rehearsed a lot there and I really started to understand a lot of things about music at that point in time. I came back to town in January of 2006, is that right? Yeah, in January of 2006. And some of the bands that I was playing with had gotten new bass players and whatnot, which was -- I said, Oh, they took my -- I left town for a minute and my gigs are gone, whatever. But I had heard about a band that was looking for a bass player, this band Luminescent Orchestrii. And so, then I auditioned and got into that band. How did I get into that band, you might ask? Okay, or how did I know about that audition or whatnot? Funny story. Jeff Perlman, who's a clarinet player in New York, used to 21:00have these amazing parties when he lived in Bushwick, in East Williamsburg, Bushwick. So, I, coincidentally lived around the corner from him. My brother had just become friends with Jake Shulman-Ment at that point in time. They were both students at NYU and they met in some bullshit "feel how wonderful your body -- roll around on tennis balls and then write essays about it" class. So, they were rolling around on the floor in tennis balls and somehow became friendly. And then, Jake and Avi were friends. Avi, my brother and I, were living together in East Williamsburg at that point in time and Jake said, "Hey, there's this party around the corner. Why don't you bring your instruments?" So, that's actually where I met a lot of the people who were involved in Balkan and klezmer music in New York. So, I met Pete Rushefsky -- who was there. Maybe Jeanette Lewicki -- I don't know. Maybe she was there, maybe not. But a lot of people were involved in 22:00Balkan music. And so, someone at that party remembered that I played bass and sort of was able to follow along and said, "Oh, Benjy sounded pretty good. You should have him audition for Luminescent Orchestrii." So, it happened -- the timing worked out perfectly. Right when I got back from Argentina, January 2006. So, I auditioned for the band a week later and learned the music. And their repertoire was primarily Balkan music and some sort of -- a couple of klezmer tunes, sort of rocked-out arrangements or something, I guess, is what the guitar player in the band says. So, definitely not playing traditionally. But through that band, I met Pete Rushefsky. And also, through that band, I was becoming better friends with Jake Shulman-Ment, who -- he and I have become very dear friends and we collaborate a lot musically, even though now he lives in Romania. But whatever. We still have some -- we've got lots of stuff planned. So then, 23:00Luminescent Orchestrii plays all this Balkan and Eastern European repertoire. And I said, Okay, well, if Sarah sings a song in Hungarian and Rima sings a song in Bulgarian, why don't I sing a song in Eastern European language? And so, the progression was sort of like, Oh, well, hm -- I don't know, I don't know. Okay, Yiddish, yeah, that makes sense, great. So, I started becoming interested in that and I said, Okay, well, I'll start learning Yiddish music a little bit, or learning a song or two. And also, at that point in time, I was becoming more interested in -- as I was becoming interested in Yiddish, my primary exposure to Yiddish song was through my grandmother, from her interest in Mordkhe Gebirtig. So, she gave me this book of Gebirtig songs that I was looking at and I started 24:00learning these really dark, late Gebirtig Holocaust songs. Horrible. And so, I start learning them, like oh, goodness. And then, it was actually coming to be my end of my time at school and I needed to put together a senior recital. So, I thought, All right, I'll put together a piece of music that'll -- I'll put together some sort of concert that'll have everything I do. So, I'll put -- you know, I want to sing a Yiddish song. That would be really cool. And I want to have some improvised music and I'll have some compositions. And I'll just put all this stuff together and it'll be great. At the same point in time, I applied for a fellowship through the Bronfman Center at NYU, the Hillel at NYU, for emerging student artists, Jewish student artists. And I got that fellowship, so I said, Okay, I'm gonna fulfill three requirements with one stone. I'm gonna do this fellowship, I'm gonna do my senior recital, and I was doing a BA at the 25:00same time. So, I'm gonna do the art project for the liberal arts component of my BA, the thesis, so I did -- somehow the piece then grew into one piece of music that was a song -- a suite, basically, seamless, between four Yiddish songs. So, two songs by Gebirtig and Warshawsky song and Reyzen, so -- with improvised sections between. And it worked in some ways, actually, I would say. And that was my first concert in -- performing in Yiddish. It was in May 2007. And the musicians who played with me on that were some people who I'd played improvised music with, so my friend Noah Kaplan and Juan Pablo Carletti, who was a friend 26:00who I played with a lot in Argentina who had moved to New York City. And then, a musician named Judith Berkson, who's a wonderful singer, who sings in Yiddish, also. And she really turned me on to Moishe Oysher. She's a Moishe Oysher-caholic, I guess you could say. And she's a musician in New York and Brooklyn who I'd been admiring for some time. I was just like, Oh my God, her work is awesome. So, I was like, I have this fellowship. I can pay Judith two hundred bucks to do this concert, yeah! So -- and she was actually the person who really encouraged me to sing. I really wanted her to sing all the music and she was like, "I don't really sing in Yiddish. I sing a little bit in Yiddish but I don't" -- she was just starting to do more of that at that point in time, as well. She said, "You need to sing." So, that was the first concert I did and I sang and Judith sang, also. We sang together a little bit. And that was the 27:00first performance in Yiddish.

PK:Now, before this project came up, what was your exposure to Yiddish?

BFR:I would say -- well, as I said, primarily my grandmother with these songs and then a little bit of -- at parties that were sort of in this Yiddish -- klezmer, and there's a lot of overlap, I would say, between the people who play klezmer and the people who play -- or a little bit of overlap between the people who play klezmer and Balkan music. So, with Luminescent Orchestrii, there -- my bandmate in that band, Sarah Alden, used to have a lot of parties at her house, or still has parties at her house. And Jeanette Lewicki or Levitz -- whatever her last name is -- who moved back to San Francisco, back to Berkeley a few years ago, was in New York and she's a great accordion player and great singer. And she was at this party and was singing these really funny Yiddish songs. And I was like, What? Wow, what's going on? That's really cool. So, that was sort of 28:00one of my first, very positive exposures to Yiddish song that's not about destruction and death. (laughs)

PK:Now, how did you know that the Gebirtig poems were about destruction and death?

BFR:Well, they were in translation, so -- side-by-side translation. There was an edition that was published by a woman named Gertrude Schneider, is that correct? At Fordham University. And my grandmother actually wrote the biographical introduction to Gebirtig. I'm not sure what her sources were for that and she hasn't really divulged that information to me somehow. And then, my grandmother hates the woman who wrote this book, 'cause my grandmother is like, "Those were my translations! That bitch, she stole my transl--" -- something like that. And the translations are really, now that I can read the Yiddish, not good and none of the -- whatever, it's not good scholarship. Enough to say that.

PK:So, when did you start studying Yiddish?

BFR:So then, I started studying Yiddish four KlezKamps ago. So, exactly three years ago-ish would be -- okay, math. Okay, math, where are we now -- 2007. So, in 2007, I guess, after I graduated school. So, in that preparation for that concert, my recital from school, I said, Okay, I have lessons. I take these private lessons for my music degree and the New School, the wonderful thing about that program is you can study with whoever you want to. So, I said, Oh, I want to study with Lorin Sklamberg because I had been listening to recordings of the Klezmatics a little bit. And I said, Oh, they sound great. He seems like -- he's a really nice singer. Maybe I would study Yiddish pronunciation and he'd 30:00teach me a few basic songs. So, I actually bumped into Jeanette in the Park Slope food co-op and said, "Oh, I've been thinking maybe about taking lessons from Lorin." And she said, "Oh, here's his number," and pulled out her cell phone and said, "Give him a call." So, I called him up and he lived on the same street as me. Different parts of the same street. I'm on the other side of the railroad tracks. Nonetheless, so that's when I started studying sort of Yiddish pronunciation without really -- it was sort of getting the sounds in my ears and coming out of my mouth. And then, at KlezKamp, I took Yiddish 101 with Paula Teitelbaum, the four-day crash course. And then, following that, I said, Okay, I'm gonna take Yiddish at the Workmen's Circle. And, yeah, and I'll take Yiddish there. And I study really hard so I can skip out of Yiddish 101 and be in Yiddish 102. And I did. And then, since then, I've studied -- I've taken a 31:00number of classes at the Workmen's Circle. This past summer, I was at the Vilna Yiddish Institute, teaching song workshops in exchange for free tuition and was studying there. And then, I audited a class at Colum-- at JTS, rather, this last semester and sort of doing different things to maintain and to improve my comprehension of the language.

PK:Who do you speak Yiddish with?

BFR:Ah, this is the problem. (laughs) Not so many people. I mean, my girlfriend and I both speak Yiddish. Not brilliantly well, but sometimes we speak to each other. Sometimes, I read with my grandmother. I just got a subscription to the "Forverts," so I would say I'm reading more than I'm speaking at this point in time.

PK:Now, how did you get involved in KlezKamp?

BFR:I think primarily Jake Shulman-Ment had said, "Oh, you should come, it'll be 32:00fun." And I think that was how, I mean -- and also, Pete Rushefsky, because I had been in -- playing Balkan music and saying, Okay, this is interesting. I'm playing this Balkan music, it's cool. We play a couple of klezmer tunes. I know this isn't how you actually play it, and I was very interested in the context that it comes from and I became very -- it was becoming more -- increasingly interested in the context of klezmer music. So, at that point in time, Jake Shulman-Ment had said, "Oh, come to KlezKamp." Pete Rushefsky, I was seeing more. He would come to Luminescent gigs a lot and he'd sort of -- he'd like, "Oh, when are you going to come to KlezKamp" -- in the way that he does that. And so, he sort of bugged me enough. My brother and I went together, yeah. Yeah.

PK:How has it been to have your brother also be a klezmer --

BFR:Well, he would say he's not a klezmer -- he says, "I just can play klezmer music. I'm not really klezmer." It's great, actually. He plays guitar in my band and he's a brilliant musician. He's a great musician. So, it was wonderful to have him to collaborate with, I would say.

PK:And what does your band do?

BFR:Well, I will give you now the evolution from that concert in May 2007 to sort of what I'm doing now. Or I guess what I'm trying to do now. (laughs) So, at that point in time, okay, I'm -- so, 2007, I had done that concert and I thought, Okay, that sort of worked. I did this big, seamless, thirty-minute long piece of music. Whew! Oh, my. I was becoming more interested in Yiddish language and songs, 'cause at that point in time, I was thinking -- had begun approaching 34:00Yiddish, I guess, in terms of using it as a tool to make an arching -- a long piece of music. And then, I was becoming much more interested in songs, specifically of like, Okay, what are the elements that I'm actually using? I've tried to make a large structure. I want to understand the small elements much better in between them. So, I started learning songs from Adrienne Cooper at KlezKamp and then I went to KlezKanada and also took song workshops there. And then, in my band, I was doing -- first, I was interested in combining improvised music and folk music. But I think I then evolved to much more, okay, songs. What does a song do? What does a song do? And the band has had varying things -- I mean, at first, I was singing a little bit and I was, "Judith, you sing more." And then, Judith was like, "No, it's your band. You should sing." And slowly, I 35:00sort of shifted away from using musicians who play primarily improvised music and jazz and had them sort of playing Jewish music in their own style, which was kind of exciting and cool. But I sort of realized, Okay, well, I can also have people who play Jewish music and improvised music, as opposed to jazz and improvised music. And I think that that -- I'm still playing with that balance of -- I mean, I really like to play with musicians who can play Jewish and then play -- and improvise, also. And I think that I've been shifting more towards people who are competent in klezmer music. So, I met Winograd that first KlezKamp and then started playing with him after that. And now, I play in his trio and he plays in my band. And he's one of the musicians I play with and I 36:00play with -- let's see, my brother, who plays a lot of Jewish music and the accordion players who I play with -- and I prefer someone who can actually play Jewish-style. So, the band has evolved from that to songs and then now, I'm sort of evolving back to new music and composition or thinking more compositionally. And I'm specifically working with these early -- well, with Gebirtig poems from his later period, either where the music was lost or earlier poems that he did not write music for. So, I'm setting them and writing new music for them. And it's more like -- I would say, in my mind, it fits more into the new music category, capital N, capital M, as opposed to -- and more like art song rather than Jewish. I don't think the stuff that I'm writing sounds particularly 37:00Jewish, I think, because -- I do incorporate some of those stylistic things and the language, I think, using Yiddish, it lends itself to -- it's Jewish, no question about it. So, that's where I'm heading, is thinking more compositionally and working with text.

PK:Are there people who -- do you feel that -- it's new music, but do you feel that you are a klezmer when you play this music?

BFR:Not when I play that music, actually. I feel like, Okay, I'm a klezmer when I play klezmer music or when I'm playing for a wedding or when I'm playing for -- I feel like, for me, part of being a klezmer is having a -- is being able to 38:00or having one -- at least at this point in time, I think klezmer music is making the transition to being concert music, which I think, in a lot of ways, it's been trying to do for a while and has failed at in various forms or has done it unsuccessfully by being fusion music or by being hip or blending with jazz music or blah-blah-blah. And I think that -- with varying degrees of success. I think that klezmer music has not yet lost its cultural context. It's important for simchas. This is not a question. And I think that most -- it's important, even if it's just "Hava Nagila," it's important in the American or world Jewish, Ashkenazic world Jewish cultural celebration. Moments of celebration, blah-blah-blah. So, I don't think that klezmer -- I think that's one part of being a klezmer. So, you actually have a social function. You are not playing 39:00music that's art music. You're not playing -- I mean, it's part of it. But you're not -- you have a function. You play for dancing. That's essentially what it is. You play for different parts of a wedding ceremony. That's existentially what it is. But at this point in time, it's one foot in that and one foot in concert music. And how do we present this in a concert hall for people who have no idea what the context is and present it as music, which it is? It's brilliant music. So, I think that's something that we're playing with, or a lot of the people who are doing klezmer music today are playing with, of -- we are sort of losing the cultural context, I mean, without a doubt. But we're also -- we're playing with that balance. So, when I'm performing my own music -- I don't know, I don't want to be in the Jewish music ghetto, so to speak. I think, also, in 40:00some -- for personal reasons, because I don't think that -- I think the music is too good to be stuck in the Jewish music world. Not necessarily my own music, to say, "Oh, my music is so --" blah-blah-blah, but just this is music, it's great, should be in the world music scene. It's part of the world music scene. I mean, however, because of the commodification of world music, world music from anywhere in the world means a very specific thing. (laughs) Means high-pitched percussion and lots of high-end when you master. I mean, it means all sorts of stupid things. But I think that as -- perhaps, as the world music scene evolves and perhaps becomes slightly less commodified, who knows, then klezmer music could be a part of it. And then, I also think that, in terms of my own compositions or my own performance, part of it's world music but part of it's -- 41:00that's not actually -- it's not honest to say I come from deep klezmer roots. I mean, it's kind of bullshit. I've been playing klezmer music for three years and I'm already on facul-- teaching at all these festivals? What the hell do I know about this music? I've been playing it for three years. To think that I'm the one who's guarding the klezmer base, that's -- it's just 'cause it's -- we're inventing it and teaching basic things. But I don't think -- I don't feel like I'm an expert at it and I think that, therefore -- I feel like there's something sort of funny about the klezmer scene for that reason of, like, here I am, teaching klezmer music after attending my first KlezKamp four years ago and listening to a lot of Hungarian music, which actually has probably taught me much more about klezmer music than playing klezmer music. (laughs) I think 42:00there's something sort of funny about the klezmer scene in that way.

PK:Why do you think that you are teaching after four years of KlezKamp?

BFR:Well, I'm passionate about the music. I love the music. I love teaching it. There aren't so many people who actually -- I mean, nonetheless, I've only been doing it a couple years. There aren't so many people who really know the style. So, there's that, also. I mean, and I like teaching. It's fun. And I think, also, I've been fortunate to be in New York and fortunate to be in the company of a lot of excellent musicians who've been doing this for much longer than I have and who've been really encouraging in terms of getting me to teach and helping me learn how to teach and -- which is -- I mean, especially Deborah Strauss and Jeff Warschauer, I have to say, have been incredibly encouraging in 43:00terms of saying, Okay, let's teach. Deborah basically -- Deborah and Christian Dawid in Berlin basically recommended me to teach at the Krakow festival. And Deb said, "I want to teach with Benjy. We're teaching together." And we've taught together before at some other workshops and at Klez -- and doing stuff here and there. But I do have to say that, also, part of it is that the older generation -- not that Deb is the older or Jeff is older generation, but people who've been doing this for longer than I have have said, "Okay, here's a competent musician who's into it, who's passionate about it. We got to get him. We got to get him to be competent and to be a part of the scene." Because I think it is -- they value my musicianship and my interest in the culture, would say.

PK:Who's your go-to when you have a question about klezmer?

BFR:Okay --

PK:Or what's your go-to --

BFR:-- well, about klezmer music, instrumental Jewish music, Jeff and Deborah, I think, in a lot of ways. I ask them things. And also, 'cause they -- I'm friends with them and they live in Brooklyn. And also, Winograd and Jake, Michael Winograd and Jake Shulman-Ment, who are also good friends who have lived in Brooklyn at different points in time. And Michael and I have played together a lot in a lot of different contexts. And, yeah, them, I would say. I mean, when I first came to KlezKamp, I was bugging Mark Rubin and Jim Guttmann, like, "What is this stuff? What is this stuff?" But then, I think, also, a lot of -- in terms of my own bass playing in klezmer style, as I briefly mentioned before, I was playing a lot of Hungarian music with Jake and a Hungarian friend of ours, 45:00Áron Székely. We were playing for dancing in New York a lot. And that style -- and I think understanding more about the historical context of klezmorim [klezmer musicians] -- that klezmer did not, does not exist in a vacuum and also that klezmer has never been one thing. There's significant distinction between regional styles, which I think is something that is maybe downplayed for the sake of the commodification of it, of like, we have a klezmer culture. And I think part of how I think about the music is the sound of the bass, as informed by Hungarian, Transylvanian folk music and Romanian music. I mean, those are the styles that I'm -- the non-Jewish styles that I'm most interested in that inform 46:00how I play klezmer bass. So, some things that I also check out -- is listening to recordings but also listening to the music of the majority cultures, so -- that klezmer evolved in or would have evolved in, continued evolving in.

PK:I know you don't create new klezmer music but do you think that there is new klezmer music being created?

BFR:Yeah, absolutely. And I'm very privileged to play in ensembles with some of those people writing new klezmer music. So, I play in Winograd's trio and work with him a lot and work with Jake a lot. And Jake is also doing some very interesting stuff in terms of researching Moldovan music. And he's also done some things where he'll take a turn -- excuse me, take a tune that he learned 47:00from -- in his research or from a recording or from someone that's not a Jewish tune and he'll say, "Okay, we're gonna play this Jewish." So, sort of like saying, Okay, we're going to take this tune and bring it in and do what we do with it, which I think is very true to what's historically done.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

PK:Where do you see your music and other music that is Jewish but not klezmer going? Or what's the field for it, what's the -- who's it going to? And why?

BFR:Interesting question. Well, I would say that I've had -- where am I employed is one way of answering that question. And I would say in terms of touring with my own band, I've toured three times in Europe with my own band and very little 48:00in the United States because -- well, I think because of touring in Europe with other bands, that I've been able to make connections there, and I think there's a little bit more money for the arts there. Not that there's a lot of money for the arts there anymore anyway, but there is a little bit more than here. I think so -- in some ways, for European audiences who are interested in Jewish music generally. I don't really want to get into all the complexities of that because you can read books by much brighter people than I who've written on that and done more extensive research. But I've really enjoyed performing in Europe for -- in some Jewish festival contexts but primarily, I've enjoyed playing at cultural centers or clubs that are not specifically Jewish, I would say, or not 49:00specifically promoting Jewish culture.

PK:Can you just tell me the reaction to your music in Europe? What people --

BFR:Yeah, people have been very enthusiastic. Yeah, that's what I can say. People have been very enthusiastic, really. Nothing --

PK:Why do you think they like it or why are they enthusiastic?

BFR:Well, it's good music, number one. Number two, I think also singing in German, the German language, I think, people -- German speakers understand bits and pieces of Yiddish much more than American Jews ever will, unless the Hasidim have millions of babies and in fifty years there are lots of Hasidim who've defected and are now secular Yiddishists. But I'm not sure that'll happen. So, I think that the German language has quite a bit to do with that. I think people 50:00being interested in little bits and pieces of Jewish language that they can sort of latch onto -- there's a little bit of complex personal feelings regarding the destruction of the Jews in Europe and German-speaking places more so than in other places. I've performed in Romania and it's more of an interest of, Oh, that's interesting, rather than, Oh, I feel such a resonance with Jewish culture, which I've gotten a good amount in Austria and in Germany a little bit.

PK:We are almost out of time. Is there anything that you wanted to talk about that we haven't touched yet?

BFR:Well, I can talk a little bit more about the -- I guess answering the question about my plans for my own education, blah-blah-blah. I'm considering going to do a master's in composition. So, getting a little more educated 51:00musically and also trying to -- and in some ways, I'd be interested in studying music in an academic setting to sort of see what the other -- another context for music because I think the direction that I'm going compositionally is towards concert music. And I'm very curious how this music that I am writing would fit into the concert music scene, which is a scene I really have very little relation to in New York. So, I think that's the one thing I want to add at this point.

PK:On the Yiddish front, where do you see Yiddish going with your work and then also in your life?

BFR:Interesting question. I alternate between a lot of -- I have a lot of ideas, 52:00often conflicting, about the Yiddish language. I am going to continue studying it and reading it and speaking it whenever (laughs) there's an appropriate opportunity to speak it. I am going to continue -- I want to finish writing the song cycle of Gebirtig poems. Once I finish that, I can't say that I'm -- it's like I was thinking, Well, if I'm sort of writing this Yiddish-language music, then maybe I'm just gonna be stuck in this Yiddish-language -- and I'm not really interested in saying I'm a composer who writes Yiddish music, new Yiddish -- I do, but I don't think that that's defining in terms of what I do musically. I think I'm a composer who likes to work with text and that's sort of all I can say at this point in time in terms of my work. And I love this wonderful 53:00language. I think it's a beautiful, resonant language. In terms of my own use of the language, maybe I'll yell at my children in Yiddish, I don't know. I don't have any children at this point in time. I have no plans for children. And I think in terms of the language in general, I'm really not sure. I think, ideally, Yiddish would be taught in Jewish day school. And I think that is probably the only way to really make Yiddish part of the mainstream Jewish context in the United States. So, that's my feeling on that front. I think Hasidim will have many children and one out of every ten will not be religious and will speak Yiddish and write -- wonderful blogs. (laughs)

PK:Are you still religious?

BFR:No. No, I worked as a cantorial soloist at a geriatric home, which is like the greatest -- we do the greatest hits of Jewish life in thirty minutes or less. Kol Nidre services were an hour long. It's like the perfect context to daven because it's old people. I get along very well with older people. It's a very diverse population. I would say about thirty percent Jewish, maybe a little less, who come to Jewish services, so -- and the Jews who are there are old Bronx Jews. Like, "I'm a Bronx girl." And if they speak a little bit of Yiddish, they have this thick Bronx accent. It's wonderful. And I really enjoy that. But I do that as -- it's a job and I'm not very interested in religious life at this 55:00point in time. My mom being a rabbi, I think, very actively dissuaded my brother and I from a life in the clergy. I'm somewhat interested in -- I like funerals, I like weddings, I like -- that's the cool thing about being a rabbi. You get to do people's funerals. Aside from that, I -- not really interested in religious life. And in terms of -- I like Shabbos as an idea and I work on Shabbos very often. And that's fine. And I don't eat pork 'cause I got sick last time I ate it in Budapest.

PK:On that note, (laughter) one more question.

BFR:Please.

PK:What advice do you have for other people getting into the klezmer scene, the Yiddish scene, this world?

BFR:Ah, interesting question. Well, I would say there's a lot of information. So, don't think that any of it is secretive or any of it belongs to anyone or that you don't have access to it or that it's not for you. There's a tremendous amount of history that's right there. And I think -- and it becomes revealed every time I sort of talk to somebody who actually does research or talk to somebody who's really interested or even -- I mean, actually, one of the first things that I became interested in Yiddish was I went to a horrible conference called Limmud a couple years ago and Hank Sapoznik was there, lecturing. And I was there playing music and I played with Hank. Actually, I guess that was also one of my first times playing klezmer. And I heard Hank's lecture talking about 57:00the early avant-garde and avant-garde Yiddish theater in the United States and how some of the first avant-garde theater performances were done in Yiddish translation. And I was thinking, Oh my God, that's amazing. Now, magically, I have the right to take Yiddish and put it into this avant-garde context or into this experimental context. And yes, I needed to hear Hank say that, to hear the historical context that this could fit in. But it's all there and it's been done. I mean, and there are so many -- I was talking to Ron Robboy while he was here, and he said, "The New York Public Library has complete scores of Yiddish theater pieces, all the parts. All you have to do is put them together and they're there. It's all there. All the information's there and it belongs to you. It doesn't belong to anyone older, it doesn't belong to anyone smarter, 58:00it's -- you study and you can have it." So, I guess that's sort of it.

PK:A sheynem dank [Thank you very much].

BFR:Nishto far vos [You're welcome].

[END OF INTERVIEW]