Di Megile fun Vaymar, part 2
The Book of Esther for 21st-century Weimar

Alan Bern in conversation with Phil Alexander

In his Megile Lider, the great Yiddish poet Itzik Manger (1901-1969) fused biblical narratives and 19th-20th century Yiddish culture to create a wild and dramatic retelling of the Book of Esther. Manger’s masterpiece serves as the basis for the present project: a contemporary purimshpil created by Alan Bern and a team of international artists. This large-scale YSW production blends traditional Yiddish genres with the creative spirit of the 1920s and 30s. Manger’s original work – a masterpiece of Yiddish poetry and theater that transcends all shtetl romanticism – is a modernist version of the biblical Purim story: a scathingly humorous, free reinterpretation that also functions as a socio-critical commentary, in which tailor’s apprentices unionize and Esther critically reflects on sexual availability. As late as 1936, the Berlin Jewish Cultural Association planned to set the work to music and produce it – a plan nullified by the increasingly aggressive Nazi policies targeting Jewish cultural institutions.

Now, almost a century later, composer Alan Bern, together with a group of outstanding contemporary artists, has brought to life the immense dramatic potential inherent in Manger’s work. The megile (Yiddish and Hebrew for “scroll” – a biblical book associated with a particular holiday; in this case, Purim) now appears on the stage in a 21st-century guise. The annual staging of a purimshpil as a piece of dramatic social criticism has been a tradition in Jewish communities for centuries. The Book of Esther is thus a perfect traditional medium for the artistic reinterpretation of an ancient text. An all-star cast of Yiddish artists create the newest link in a centuries-old chain of purimshpiln.

This COZ session and the previous week’s (April 5) will feature an online viewing of di megile fun vaymar, followed by Alan Bern discussing the work.

Recipient of the prestigious Weimar Prize in 2016, Dr. Alan Bern is the founding artistic director of Yiddish Summer Weimar and the OMA Improvisation Project (formerly Winter Edition), founding director of the Other Music Academy (OMA), and co-founder and chair of other music e.V.
In 2017, Bern was honored with the Thuringia Order of Merit.

He is a composer/arranger, pianist, accordionist, educator, cultural activist and philosopher. He is co-founder and director of Brave Old World, founder and director of The Other Europeans, Diaspora Redux and the Semer Ensemble, and he also performs with Bern, Brody & Rodach and with Guy Klucevsek.

His education included classical piano with Paul Badura-Skoda and Leonard Shure, jazz with Karl Berger, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Anthony Braxton and others, contemporary music with John Cage, Frederic Rzewski, Joel Hoffman and others, and philosophy and cognitive science with Dan Dennett. He received his master’s degree in Philosophy and his doctorate degree in music composition. He has composed and directed music for theater and dance in New York, Montreal, Berlin, Lucerne, Essen and Bremen, among others. He is the creator of Present-Time Composition©, an innovative approach to music improvisation informed by insights from cognitive science. In 2009, he was given the Ruth Lifetime Achievement Award for his work as a musician and educator.