Radiant Others is proud to present an episode on “Songs from Testimonies – Fortunoff Video Archive” Featuring musician and scholar D. Zisl Slepovitch and archivist Stephen Naron. This is the second in our informal series about people creating present day music working with archives. The archive that is the focus of this episode is the Fortunoff Video Archive at Yale University, which holds over 12,000 hours of video testimony with survivors of the Holocaust. In this project, Zisl Slepovitch and his ensemble featuring Sasha Lurje draw out the songs and poetry shared by the people being interviewed in a dynamic music and storytelling performance. They have produced three albums of this material, the latest being Shotn/Shadows, Songs from Testimonies, Volume 3.
We dive into this very intense and serious music and music source by first relating it to our guests’ backgrounds, including Zisl’s wide ranging work and skills that made him the perfect person (as well as a highly in-demand New York musician!) for Stephen and the archive to work with in bringing these songs to the present. We talk about the scholarly and artistic process, and the ethical questions and responsibilities that must be navigated to do this work right. We also talk about the value of being able to present history, especially the history of catastrophes like the Holocaust as the stories of people’s lives, not just their deaths. Finally we invite all of you to listen to the music and to visit and make use of this vast and vital archive.
Also! The Archive is having its first ever large scale exhibition of footage from the archive at the Beineke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale, which runs though the end of January.
Learn more here.Music on this episode:
Di Bone
Radiant Others is produced by Dan Blacksberg and Beila Ungar.
The Radiant Others podcast aims to be the internet’s central space for important conversations in Yiddish and Klezmer music. Please support our work on
https://www.patreon.com/RadiantOthers
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
