The YIVO Folksong Project

From 1973-1975 YIVO collected 2,000 Yiddish folk songs and oral histories as a part of its YIVO Folksong Project: East European Jewish Folksong in its Social Context. The project, directed by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, created a one-of-a-kind audio resource which includes recordings of Yiddish folk songs from genres and groups which are rarely documented and gives insight into the songs traditional Eastern European Jewish singers sang, the range and variety of their repertoire, how they learned to sing, and what singing meant to them on a personal and communal level.

Thanks to a “Recordings at Risk Grant” from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), this collection has now been digitized and is available to researchers anywhere in the world. Join YIVO for a discussion of the YIVO Folksong Project including examples of material from the project, and a demonstration of how to access this material. This panel will feature the original project director Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, ethnomusicologist Mark Slobin, singer and composer Joshua Waletzky, and YIVO Sound Archivist Eléonore Biezunski.

Part of YIVO’s Continuing Evolution: Yiddish Folksong Today, a music festival celebrating Yiddish folksong.

This program is co-sponsored by American Society for Jewish Music, The Center for Traditional Music and Dance’s An-sky Institute for Yiddish Culture, Congress for Jewish Culture, and Yiddish New York.