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Introducing the
Jewish Music Forum
The
American Society for Jewish Music (ASJM) is
pleased to announce the formation of a major new project, the Jewish
Music Forum (JMF). Taking its name and inspiration from an earlier chapter
of ASJM’s history, the new Jewish Music Forum will serve both as a regular
meeting place and an international network for scholars and researchers who are
actively studying Jewish music, as well as a key cultural resource for artists
and educators creating new Jewish music today.
The Jewish Music
Forum (JMF) will concentrate on three main areas of activity. First, JMF will
host an annual series of regular academic seminars at the Center for Jewish
History, where AJHS is a partner and ASJM an affiliate organization. There,
participants will come together to present new research findings, theories and
works-in-progress for an audience of scholars, graduate students and other
interested Jewish music specialists. The aim will be to build up a core group of
New York-based participants representing interdisciplinary interests who will be
joined by visiting researchers. New media technology will allow these sessions
to be recorded and archived on DVDs for interested individuals and academic
institutions well beyond New York.
Beyond this
series of academic seminars, JMF will work together with performers, educators
and composers to complement the fruits of academic labor and create artistic
programs for the general public. The academic seminars will be coordinated with
concerts and workshops held at the Center for Jewish History and elsewhere,
providing the public an opportunity to experience both the rich diversity of
Jewish music and the important, revealing efforts of Jewish music scholarship.
The JMF will aim to support and amplify the efforts of the journal Musica
Judaica to bring original academic research to a wide audience.
Finally, in the
interest of promoting the study of Jewish music in larger American and
international academic circles, JMF will also join in sponsoring events and
forums at academic conferences, such as annual meetings of the Association for
Jewish Studies, the American Musicological Society and the Society for
Ethnomusicology. JMF will also serve as the American affiliate of the Jewish
Music Research Centre of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. These efforts will
serve to promote awareness of the important research going on in the field of
Jewish music today. By linking up scholars of Jewish music from disciplines
ranging from musicology to anthropology to history and beyond, JMF intends to
develop a professional network of specialists in Jewish music, who can serve as
resources to each other and the different communities where they live, work and
teach.
To lead the
project, the American Society for Jewish Music named James Loeffler of Columbia
University as Executive Director of the Jewish Music Forum, ASJM Board Member
Mark Kligman of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion as Academic
Chair, and Judah M. Cohen of New York University as Vice-Academic Chair. They
were joined as well by a steering committee comprised of leading scholars from
the United States and Israel. Together this team assembled the schedule for the
first semester of academic programs centered on the series of academic seminars,
held at the Center for Jewish History beginning in January 2005. Since
that time Dr. Loeffler has become Co-Vice Academic Chair and has been succeeded
as Executive Director by Gina Genova. This year marks the third season of
academic seminars.
VIEW
LECTURE SCHEDULE
For
further information about the activities of the Jewish Music Forum, please
contact Gina Genova at ggenova@jewishmusicforum.org. |
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