Payadora Tango Ensemble: Silent Tears – The Last Yiddish Tango

Payadora Tango Ensemble: Silent Tears – The Last Yiddish Tango

Unbursting the Bubble Listening Post 371. Art that evokes the Holocaust works best not when it shocks but when it enlightens. The melancholy music of Silent Tears may sound familiar—and its setting might be recognizable if the stage hadn’t gone dark in 1939. In the...
Lenka Lichtenberg: Thieves of Dreams

Lenka Lichtenberg: Thieves of Dreams

A Vocal Afterlife Listening Post 355. If poetry is a lost art, Lenka Lichtenberg’s latest album is a welcome reminder that what is lost can also be found. In 2016, the Czech-Canadian Jewish singer-songwriter was in her native Prague, sorting through the belongings of...
Yungchen Lhamo: Awakening

Yungchen Lhamo: Awakening

From the Top Listening Post 345. Like a mountain wind or a force of nature, Yungchen Lhamo’s voice gracefully and powerfully opens Awakening, her sixth album, demonstrating that beauty exists to direct our attention. In a rare convergence of planetary decay and...
Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of World War II

Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of World War II

To Life! Listening Post 148. The song Shpatsir in Vald (A Walk in the Forest) has everything—poignant dialogue between lovers about to be separated by war, a dulcet Russian waltz melody and the spellbinding voice of Sophie Milman (video 1). The lyrics were penned in...