Abstract:
“Klezmer” is the term commonly used today to refer to music Jewish music from Eastern Europe and is often associated with the Yiddish language and Ashkenazi Jews. Since the 1970s a renewed interest in klezmer has led musicians, both Jewish and non-Jewish, to explore this style with its hallmark modal melodies and rhythmic patterns, and to interpret it through their own individual cultural lenses. These varied interpretations of klezmer nonetheless share a certain set of characteristics, from melodic and harmonic tendencies to a core repertoire which has persisted since the beginning of the twentieth century. This dissertation examines how these characteristics can be applied to construct a defined klezmer style while at the same time outlining differing approaches in late twentieth and early twenty-first century klezmer performances.
