Internationally acclaimed soprano Juliana Yaffé performs the rediscovered groundbreaking Yiddish folksong arrangements of the late Robert De Cormier, done for the 1950s/60s Vanguard recordings of Marthe Schlamme and Netanya Davrath. These arrangements were never performed live, but now concert tours in the UK, Europe, and the U.S. are bringing them to a global audience in Juliana's Yiddish Folksong Project more than sixty years after Schlamme and Davrath made their seminal recordings. In Robert De Cormier's evocative arrangements, songs like “Rozhinkes mit mandlen,” “Tayere Malke,” “Tum-balalayke,” “Az der rebe zingt,” “S'brent,” and “Lomir ale freylekh zayn” come to life as never heard before. Juliana's new recording of eighteen of these songs, and the corresponding (recently published) songbook will also be for sale at the performance.
Juliana will be joined by guest conductor John Yaffé.
Internationally acclaimed soprano and vocal pedagogue Juliana Yaffé has been heard as a soloist in performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Lincoln Center Festival, and the 92nd Street Y. She has been a guest soloist at the Steirischer Herbst Festival (Austria), Colorado Springs Symphony, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony, Oakland Symphony, San Jose Symphony, Florida Philharmonic, Istanbul Philharmonic, Orchester der deutschen Oper Berlin, Tokyo City Philharmonic, Orquestra del Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires), Orchestra dell'Opera di Genova, Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie, and the Symphonie-Orchester Graunke (Munich). She has sung solo recitals throughout Europe and the U.S. Across twelve years, she was engaged as a Principal Soloist at the opera houses of Münster, Essen, and Stuttgart, Germany. Guest engagements found her in San Francisco, New York, Darmstadt, Aachen, Osnabrück, Kassel, Berlin, and Miami. She was Head of Vocal Studies at the Mannes College of Music, Junior Division, and served on the voice faculties of New York University, Royal Northern College of Music (England), and Coventry University (England). She holds a graduate degree in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy from Boston University, where, as a Dean's Scholar, she was a protégé of the renowned Phyllis Curtin.
John Yaffé has conducted at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, and The 92nd Street Y. He recently led the New Jersey Symphony on their summer outdoor concert series as well as their Nutcracker production, conducted at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and was in the Czech Republic for recordings of piano concertos of Chopin and DeGaetano. He has led the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the Colorado Springs Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic, San Antonio Symphony, Chattanooga Symphony, Chattanooga Opera, Walla Walla Symphony, the Turkish State Opera, and he led the first American musical ever produced in Albania (West Side Story). He has been Music Director of New York’s 92nd Street Y, Encompass New Opera Theatre, and Resident Conductor of the Florida Philharmonic. In the 1980s, he was a staff conductor in the German opera houses of Hagen, Münster, Osnabrück, and Stuttgart, and guest conducted orchestras in Remscheid, Konstanz, Munich, and Stuttgart. He served as Co-Director of the Orchestral program of the Tanglewood Institute. He holds a Ph.D. from Coventry University, England, where he also served as Assistant Professor and Co-Course Director for Music.