Museum of Jewish Heritage Will Present the New York Premiere of YIDDISH GLORY: THE LOST SONGS OF WWII

Revealing a once lost cultural history of WWII, the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust will present the New York premiere of a live performance of the Grammy-nominated album "Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of World War II", featuring the preeminent Russian Roma trio Loyko, singer-songwriter Psoy Korolenko, and narration by Yiddish scholar Anna Shternshis. Two performances only will be given at 7 PM on Monday, March 30 and Tuesday, March 31.

This concert shines a spotlight on the everyday lives of Soviet Jews during World War II and the Holocaust - civilians and soldiers of all ages whose voices were silenced by Hitler and Stalin.

Yiddish Glory is a product of collaboration between historian Anna Shternshis (University of Toronto), artist Psoy Korolenko (Moscow - New York), and Toronto-based producer Dan Rosenberg. It features anti-fascist songs and music documenting Nazi atrocities that were discovered in a former Soviet archive in the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine.

The songs' lyrics, written by Holocaust victims and survivors in the Soviet Union during World War II, have been resurrected by Yiddish Glory and will be performed by the world-renown trio Loyko and sung by Psoy Korolenko. The songs, originally by amateur authors, were collected by legendary ethnomusicologist Moisei Beregovsky and thought lost following his arrest during Stalin's anti-Jewish purge. Decades later, the songs were discovered in a collection of unnamed boxes in Ukraine's national library, and revived by a team of dedicated artists and scholars determined to raise awareness of this lost chapter of history.

Two performances will be given on Monday, March 30 and Tuesday, March 31, both at 7 PM,

with captions in English, Yiddish, and Russian in the intimate Edmond J. Safra Hall at the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, 36 Battery Place in Lower Manhattan.

Tickets are $35 General Admission, $30 Museum Members; advance purchase recommended at mjhnyc.org/yiddishglory or in person at the Museum's box office.

About the Artists

Loyko: There is a 300-years-old legend about a famous Roma (Gypsy) violinist, Loyko Zobar, who played in a way so heartfelt that animals came out of the forest to listen to him. His glory lives on, as well as his violin, which today is being played by his distant descendant, Sergey Erdenko, founder and frontman of the trio Loyko. He performs with his friends Artur Gorbenko and Michael Savichev, musicians from Saint Petersburg, on stages such as Theatre Marigny in Paris, Royal Conservatory of Brussels, Old Opera House in Frankfurt, Budapest Congress Center, Royal Theatre in London, President Palace in Cyprus, National Concert Hall in Dublin, Crocus Hall and Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow, Oktyabrskiy Big Concert Hall and Capella in St. Petersburg, The Alhambra in Geneva, Hofburg Imperial Palace, Theatre "Ronja" in Vienna, among others, where they are admired by the most sophisticated audiences for their mastery, virtuosity, and uniqueness. Trio Loyko has collaborated with such world-renowned musicians as Ronnie Wood, Yehudi Menuhin, Gidon Kremer, and Stephane Grappelli, among others.

Anna Shternshis holds the position of Al and Malka Green Professor of Yiddish studies and the Director of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto. She received her doctoral degree (D.Phil) in Modern Languages and Literatures from Oxford University in 2001. Shternshis is the author of Soviet and Kosher: Jewish Popular Culture in the Soviet Union, 1923 - 1939 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006) and When Sonia Met Boris: An Oral History of Jewish Life under Stalin (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017). She is the co-editor-in-chief of East European Jewish Affairs. Shternshis created and directed the Yiddish Glory project with artist Psoy Korolenko, an initiative that brought back to life the forgotten Yiddish music written during the Holocaust in the Soviet Union. She lectures widely around the world and is a frequent guest on radio and television shows worldwide (CBC, NPR, and BBC, among others). Her work on Yiddish Glory has been featured in printed media, television, and radio in more than 40 countries. Shternshis was honored with a Federation of Jewish Communities in Russia Fiddler on the Roof award last year.

Pavel Lion, a.k.a. Psoy Korolenko, is a Moscow based singer/songwriter, translator, scholar, and journalist. He has been referred to as a ''wandering scholar'' and an ''avant-bard''. His multilingual, one-person cabaret-esque show balances folk and klezmer music, free-style poetry, and intellectual comedy. Korolenko writes and sings in English, Russian, Yiddish, and French. On stage since 2000, he has published a book of selected essays and song lyrics, The Hit Of The Century', and 14 CDs, some of them in collaboration with active Jewish and Klezmer musicians ("Opa!", Daniel Kahn, Igor Krutogolov, and "Oy Division"). Korolenko is a member of the organizing committee for a Russian American music festival JetLAG, a guest of many klezmer music festivals, and an ex-artist in residence at the Trinity College (Hartford), University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), and Dickinson College (Carlisle, PA).

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