MUSIC REVIEWS : A Generous Array of ‘Jewish Music’

For the “New Voices in Jewish Music” concert presented in Gindi Auditorium at the University of Judaism Tuesday night, artistic director Neal Brostoff had assembled a lengthy and challenging program. Too lengthy, it turned out.

And, if the mass exit at intermission was any indication, too challenging for most. Still, this overabundance yielded, when considered individually, a number of strong works, and Brostoff had procured some of our best local musicians--many of them Los Angeles Philharmonic members--to play them. Polish and commitment were not lacking.

Shulamit Ran’s “O the Chimneys,” a setting of poems by Nelly Sachs for soprano, small instrumental ensemble and tape, struck most deeply. An epic nightmare in bold, Expressionistic relief, the work is an unremitting wail of pain. But the effectiveness of its drama, the imagination of its instrumentalism and, especially, the sweeping lines of its vocalism keep one fascinated, not merely appalled.

It didn’t hurt that soprano Anne Marie Ketchum turned in a vocally and emotionally astonishing performance, along with strong support from the Steven Mosko-led ensemble.

David Stock’s “Yerusha,” for solo clarinet (a high-flying Michele Zukovsky) and mixed ensemble, proved an exuberant concerto collage, Stravinskian Cubism turned up two notches and Klezmerized. Michael Isaacson’s “Dreamchant,” also for a small mixed instrumental ensemble, used insistent reiterations of Torah cantillations around which the other instruments noodled, urged, echoed and vamped in an effective Ivesian, minimalistic mix.

Paul Schoenfield’s Trio, for clarinet, violin and piano, romped robustly and marched grotesquely to Hasidic melodies. Diane Thome’s “Levadi,” for mezzo-soprano and tape, and Tsippi Fleischer’s “Ballad of Expected Death in Cairo,” for mezzo, strings and piano, sung, respectively, in Ladino and Arabic by Isabelle Ganz, rounded out (overstuffed) the event.