Who's Who

Conceived, written, and performed by Jenny Levison
Music Director - Pablo Aslan
Directors - Rebecca Bayla Taichman and Dan Fields

Tango Meydl Orchestra:
Pablo Aslan, Contrabass
Steven Greenman, Violin
Jenny Levison, Vocals
Jeanette Lewicki, Accordion
Maurizio Najt, Piano
Jenny Scheinman, Violin

Dancers:
Bill Alsup and Gillian Leichtling

Yiddish calligraphy by Peggy Davis
Original papercut by Adam Whiteman
Graphic design by John Kramer
Website design by Matthew Fass
Photos of Jenny Levison by Ellen Regal

Jenny Levison, Artistic Director, Producer, Performer

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Jenny Levison has been participating in the klezmer and Yiddish music revival since 1993. She has studied Yiddish singing and Jewish musical arranging and composition with Michael Alpert, Alan Bern, and other members of Brave Old World, the Klezmatics, and the Klezmer Conservatory Band.

Her passion for Yiddish tango is the synthesis of her love for Yiddish music and for Argentine tango. Jenny has been researching, collecting, and performing Yiddish tango music since 1993. In January 1998, she traveled to Buenos Aires to study tango dancing and to research Jewish influence in tango composition and performance. To date, she has collected over 150 tangos with Yiddish lyrics, as well as dozens of tangos by Jewish composers.

With David Robboy, she was a founding member of the Portland Yiddish Theatre Ensemble. In the Spring of 1996, her 20th century classical composition A Klezmer Suite: Trern, Ayz, Mabl was performed at Portland State University by Andrew Ehrlich, Mike Curtis, and Genia Shadrin. In the Spring of 1999, she performed her 20th-century classical composition, Shtil, Mayn Corazon, at Marylhurst University with Kira Whiting, Mzuri Robertson, and Jim Ormond.

In her recent position as Creative Action Coordinator at United For A Fair Economy, Jenny created and performed the character of Millie O'Nair -- the "co-chair" of Billioniares for Bush (Or Gore.) In addition to appearing at marches, rallies, and board meetings to promote her agenda of growing economic inequality, Millie recently received international media coverage as lead singer with her black tie band, the Billionaires.

Jenny is a former member of Boka Marimba, Portland's Zimbabwean marimba ensemble, and of political satire and musical comedy troupe Angels: the Next Generation with Melinda Pittman. Jenny is the 1999-2000 recipient of the Lilla Jewel Award for Women Artists, granted by the McKenzie River Gathering Foundation, as well as a recent artist's grant from the Regional Arts and Culture Council.

Artist's statement

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One night in 1993, the year I both started singing Yiddish and also dancing Argentine tango, I was on the dance floor when I heard something that made me stop in my tracks. Right in the middle of an Argentine tango was a violin playing the melody to Zol Shoyn Kumen Di Geule, a Yiddish folk song I had just learned earlier in the year. Not long after, I noticed that as well as an occasional Yiddish melody in Argentine tango, that there are lots of tangos in the Yiddish repertoire. I started to research both phenomena; I went to the YIVO archives in New York, to Bob Freedman's archive in Philadelphia, to the U.S. Holocaust Museum archive in Washington, DC, and in 1995 I traveled to Buenos Aires to do research in the IWO archives. Friends started sending me Yiddish tangos that they had on old 78's, I dug through all the published books of Yiddish songs, and before long I had a collection of over 150 tangos with Yiddish lyrics, and dozens more tangos with Polish or Spanish lyrics, written by Jewish composers and lyricists. These tangos come from pre-war Poland, from the ghettos, from Argentina, and from the Yiddish theater before and after the war.

I decided I wanted to sing this repertoire, and to present the material in a way that would combine theater, dance, and music, and that would integrate my interest in how immigrant communities use art and culture from their countries of origin, as well as their new homes, to survive and to thrive when faced with displacement.

And so I bring you Shtil, Mayn Corazon -- A Yiddish Tango Cabaret.

I am greatly inspired by the union of arts and politics. I feel that Yiddish music is most relevant today in two capacities: as the voice of a living tradition in its own right, and also as a voice of today's refugees and immigrants. I have sought out, in particular, Yiddish songs of work and immigration as well as labor and immigration music from other cultures. I am currently developing my newest project: ANDALE -- A New Different Approach To Labor Education -- a music and organizing project that draws on the labor and immigration songs of immigrants and refugees.

Jenny Levison
October 17, 2000

Dan Fields, Director

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Dan Fields recently directed and produced the acclaimed revival of Arthur Miller's The Man Who Had All The Luck in Los Angeles. He was the Resident Director of Disney's Broadway production of The Lion King. In Seattle, Dan directed more than two dozen plays, including the world premieres of A Little Heap of Beckett, The 20th Century, This End Up, and Betty in Bondage at Annex Theatre where he was a resident director. He has assistant directed at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Seattle Repertory Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, the Goodman Theater, Intiman Theater and The Empty Space Theater. He is a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab and New York Theater Workshop. He most recently directed Molly's Delicious, the inaugural production of The Group at Strasberg in Los Angeles. Fields is the founding Artistic Director of Finesilver Shows.

Rebecca Bayla Taichman, Director

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Rebecca Bayla Taichman directed Anna Deveare Smith's new play Piano this summer at Ms. Smith's Institute for the Arts and Civic Dialogue at Harvard University. Rebecca also directed the Obie award winning solo show Menopausal Gentleman, starring Peggy Shaw of The Split Britches Company. Menopausal Gentleman has been touring the US and internationally to great acclaim. Rebecca recently graduated the Yale Drama School where she directed and wrote The People vs. The God of Vengeance at the Yale Repertory Theater, which interweaves text from the play God of Vengeance with text from the obscenity trial that surrounded its Broadway production in 1923, and which features music by Michael Alpert. While at Yale, Rebecca also directed Taming of the Shrew, Sunil Kuruvilla's Fighting Words, and Colleen Pickett's Portraits. Rebecca has worked at The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center as a director, assistant director, actress, and archivist. Rebecca has also worked as a director and assistant director with The Lab Theater, The American Place Theatre, The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and The Roundabout. Rebecca assistant directed the Tony Award winning production Barrymore starring Christopher Plummer and directed by Gene Saks. For her Drama League fellowship, Rebecca assisted Michael Mayer on the new musical Thoroughly Modern Millie at LaJolla Playhouse. Rebecca has also worked as a casting director for the American Place Theater and cast their productions of The Slow Drag and Stonewall Jackson's House.

Tara Coyote Days, Stage Manager

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Tara Coyote Days has been involved in the theater since she fell in love with Hair at the age of five, 21 years ago. Since then she has been an avid fan of all things theatrical. She recently received her BA in theater arts from the University of Oregon and studied stage management in Great Britain. While at the University of Oregon she stage-managed more than ten productions, including a composition of the works of Samuel Beckett, An Evening in Beckett's Shorts. Coyote also served as technical director for the Pocket Playhouse, the University's all-student-run theatre, for two years. Most recently she was stage manager for a Portland-based organization, PHAME, which works with developmentally disabled actors.

Pablo Aslan, Musical Director, contrabass

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Pablo Aslan, musical director, contrabass

Argentine-born bassist and composer Pablo Aslan has resided in the US since 1980. In addition to directing Avantango, he is a founding member of New York Buenos Aires Connection and New York Tango Trio. With these groups he has recorded several CDs and toured throughout North America, Europe and Russia. He participated in the 2nd and 3rd Tango Summits in Spain and Uruguay and recently toured the US and Japan with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and members of the Astor Piazzolla Quintet, appearing also on PBS and ABC. He is a member of BMG artist Pablo Ziegler's Quintet for New Tango, with whom he recorded and toured extensively in the US, Europe and Japan. He appeared at Carnegie Hall and on PBS with "Tango Magic" and at the JVC Jazz Festival, leading his own New York Tango Quartet. Aslan is also a member of David Krakauer's Klezmer Madness with whom he appears regularly in New York and toured Europe in 1999, recording for Label Bleu.

His most recent recordings include CDs by composer Frank London (Tzadik and Knitting Factory Records), klezmer violinist Alicia Svigals (Traditional Crossroads), avant-garde conductor Walter Thompson (9 Winds), singer Rebecca Pidgeon (Chesky Records), Pablo Ziegler (with Joe Lovano) (BMG), and the argentine composer Fernando Tarrs (Imaginary South). He has also recorded on numerous film soundtracks, most recently for composer Dave Grusin and director Sidney Pollack, and "Flawless", featuring Robert De Niro. Mr. Aslan has worked with artists as varied as film composer Lalo Schiffrin, Argentine composer Carlos Franzetti, Japanese pop diva Anna Saeki, Da Camera of Houston, and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Aslan is currently working on a ballet commissioned by Lines Contemporary Ballet in San Francisco, and a score for the New York-based Tango Mujer, to be premiered in the Fall. He is also arranger and musical director of Jenny Levison's new work, "Shtil, Mayn Corazon -- a Yiddish Tango Cabaret."

Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote "(...) with Mr. Aslan's 'Tango Afuera' the modern tango showed life after Astor Piazzolla."

Aslan is also a scholar of the tango. He wrote his Master's Thesis at UCLA on "Tango: Stylistic Evolution and Innovation", writes regularly for Tango Times, La Voz del Tango, El Firulete, and was Contributing Editor of La Posta del Tango. He has lectured on the history of the tango at Wesleyan University, Stanford Tango Workshop, and in several cities in the US and Europe. This Fall he will be teaching at CUNY Graduate Center Continuing Education. His "Musicality Workshop" is a favorite among US tango dancers. Aslan is also devoted to the teaching of tango musical techniques to North American musicians, holding workshops and coaching bands throughout the country.

Steven Greenman, Violin

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Steven Greenman is one of the few practitioners of traditional East European Jewish klezmer violin. He is the first American born klezmer violinist to create a program and performance style based entirely on the repertoire of European klezmer violin music. Together with Walter Zev Feldman (cimbal) Steven co-founded the Khevrisa ensemble (1998), an ensemble dedicated to preserving and reconstructing East-European klezmer music through research, concerts, workshops and lectures. Steven has also performed internationally with such notable klezmer ensembles as Budowitz, the Klezmatics, the Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band, and Kapelye. In addition he has also substituted for members of the Klezmatics in their 1997 performance of Tony Kushner's adaptation of S. Ansky's "Dybbuk." Steven has taught klezmer violin at Living Tradition's KlezKamp and at the KlezKanada festival and has been a regular performer with various ensembles at Ashkenaz: A Festival of New Yiddish Culture. A serious performer of Hungarian "Nota", Romanian Gypsy and Slovak music, Steven has performed with the ensemble, Harmonia with whom he co-founded with Walt Mahovlich in 1993.

Steven received both his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees in Violin Performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music studying under Linda Sharon Cerone, Dr. Eugene Gratovich, and the late Bernhard Goldschmidt. As a classical violinist he is a regular guest soloist with the Cleveland Pops Orchestra, performing his own arrangements of traditional East European Gypsy violin music. Steven has also performed as a member of the Canton and Akron Symphony Orchestras and has participated in the National Repertory Orchestra, the National Orchestral Institute, and the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria.

Together with Walter Zev Feldman, Steven co-produced the recording, Khevrisa-European Klezmer Music on the Smithsonian Folkways label. Steven is also featured on the following recordings: as lead violinist with Budowitz ("Mother Tongue"); as guest artist with the Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band ("Fire"); as accompanist with Alicia Svigals ("Fidl"): and with Budowitz and Alicia Svigals on Ellipsis Arts' ("Klezmer Music: A Marriage of Heaven and Earth").

Jeanette Lewicki, Accordion

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Jeanette Lewicki plays klezmer and sings in Yiddish with the San Francisco Klezmer Experience, the Gonifs, and accordion duo Max and Minka. She performs in the street and on concert stages in San Francisco, New York, and Europe. Ms. Lewicki has studied accordion and Yiddish song with Alan Bern and Michael Alpert of Brave Old World, and with Professor Martin Schwartz of Berkeley.

Maurizio Najt, Piano

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Maurizio Najt, piano

Born in Italy and raised in Argentina, graduated in piano performance and composition at the Conservatorio Nacional de Musica in Buenos Aires. He is a member of the New York Buenos Aires Connection and the New York Tango Trio, with whom he has performed and toured extensively throughout the United States, Europe and Russia. A New York City resident, Mr. Najt works as a composer, arranger, church organist and musical director for off Broadway shows, as well as a coach and accompanist for singers and instrumentalists. Recently he performed at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center for the production Tango and Tango; with the Panamerican Symphonic Orchestra in Washington DC; "Celebrate Buenos Aires!" at the World Financial Center in New York City and "Midnight Summer Swing" at Lincoln Center Plaza.

Jenny Scheinman, Violin

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Jenny Scheinman is twenty seven, lives in Brooklyn, studied at Oberlin Conservatory and has been playing violin professionally since she was a teenager. She will be releasing a new quartet record in the October of 2000 on Avant Records entitled "Live at Yoshi's." She has worked with Bill Frisell, Myra Melford, John Zorn, Cecil Taylor, Venecius Cantuaria, Muhal Richard Abrams, David Dorfman Dance, The Big Apple Circus, Charming Hostess, The Hot Club of San Francisco, and has been asked by John Zorn to do a CD for his Radical Jewish Culture series on Tzadik. She has toured extensively in Europe and the Americas, teaches at the Stanford Jazz Workshop, and studies with violinist Gerald Beal.

Gillian Leichtling and Bill Alsup, Dancers

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