MUSIC
THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 2019
8:00 PM

Alicia Svigals & Donald Sosin: The Ancient Law
The Town & Village Synagogue
334 East 14th Street, East Village, Manhattan

$15 for the performance; $35 for performance and preceding instrumental workshop commencing at 6:30 PM
http://nyklezmer.com/concert-schedule/apr-18-2019-alicia-svigals-donald-sosin-the-ancient-law-silent-film

The Ancient Law was an until-recently-lost classic of Weimar cinema, a Jewish-made silent tragicomedy telling the story of the son of an Orthodox rabbi whose establishment of an acting career is opposed by his father (with the secular world not presented with unalloyed affection):  another story of assimilation (cf. Hollywood's The Jazz Singer of a few years later), heartbreakingly produced a short time before its country decided to take extreme measures to insure that Jewish assimilation would cease being an issue.  The silent film will be accompanied by live music by one of the leading composer/pianists specializing in the accompaniment of silent films, Donald Sosin -- and the fabulous Alicia Svigals, whom I am going to hyperbolically call the greatest klezmer violinist in the world (really!), an astonishing stylist who brings that plaintively swinging music resolutely into the present.

MAKE A NIGHT OF IT:  Smoked meats and other things at Ducks Eatery.