{"id":16192,"date":"2015-12-04T00:53:54","date_gmt":"2015-12-04T08:53:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=16192"},"modified":"2015-12-03T21:59:57","modified_gmt":"2015-12-04T05:59:57","slug":"klezfest-in-winnipeg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2015\/12\/04\/klezfest-in-winnipeg\/","title":{"rendered":"Klezfest in Winnipeg"},"content":{"rendered":"

Winnipeg Klezfest co-producers Bev Aronovitch, left, and Miriam Bronstein. (photo from Rady JCC)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

After attending the week-long KlezKanada Laurentian retreat near Montreal, Miriam Bronstein and Beverly Aronovitch wondered, why not do the same in Winnipeg? And so, they began planning \u2013 the city\u2019s first Klezfest took place at the Rady Jewish Community Centre on Oct. 10 and 11.<\/p>\n

Bronstein, a retired music and high school drama teacher who continues to perform at the Fringe Festival, is also very involved with Soup Sisters, an organization that makes soup for women\u2019s shelters. Aronovitch is a jazz musician, producer and retired teacher.<\/p>\n

As both Bronstein and Aronovitch are of Eastern European decent, klezmer spoke to them. \u201cI\u2019m a singer, she\u2019s a piano player, so we thought it might be fun to go spend time in that scene,\u201d said Bronstein. \u201cI never realized that I actually speak Yiddish because, as I grew up, my mother spoke Yiddish with me, but I only answered her in English. So, it\u2019s actually quite remarkable that I can speak Yiddish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the KlezKanada experience, Bronstein said, \u201cIt was life changing. It reconnected me with that Eastern European community. It was very, very cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

At KlezKanada, Aronovitch and Bronstein enjoyed seeing people of all ages, from toddlers to 90-year-olds, dancing to the music, as well as McGill University students taking a klezmer course.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were people from all over the world, musicians from all over the world, and they weren\u2019t all Jewish,\u201d said Bronstein. \u201cIt was just such a scene that both of us just said, \u2018Oh my gosh! We have to do this in Winnipeg!\u2019 We just took it on when we came home. We didn\u2019t forget about it. We just pursued it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although KlezKanada was a week long, Bronstein and Aronovitch felt that the first such festival in Winnipeg had to be shorter, at least for starters. They began by booking the world-famous Klezmatics from New York and, with the help of Winnipeg\u2019s own Finjan \u2013 Kinzey Posen, Shayla Fink, Myron Schultz and Daniel Koulack \u2013 they put together a full day of festivities. It kicked off with a Saturday night Klezmatics performance, followed by several Sunday workshops, culminating in a concert led by members of Finjan and the Klezfest faculty.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a wonderful workshop about great Yiddish composers and beginner klezmer playing sessions, and then a more advanced session called Readers\u2019 Romp,\u201d said Bronstein.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne idea we had that is unique to Winnipeg was that we very much wanted to cross borders and recognize we have many ethnic communities in Winnipeg, so we had a workshop called Common Roots,\u201d she said. \u201cWe got Ukrainian musicians and Romanian musicians. We brought people in from the city and the theme was \u2018Weddings.\u2019 They played what you\u2019d play at a Ukrainian wedding and then the members of Finjan played what you\u2019d play at a Jewish wedding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bronstein would like to expand on the Common Roots concept next time, as there is a big Eastern European contingency in Winnipeg. She\u2019d also like to see annual Mamaloshen Festival of Yiddish Entertainment and Culture attendees participate in Klezfest.<\/p>\n

With their first Klezfest behind them, Bronstein said, \u201cWe\u2019re just kind of basking in the glow. It was hugely successful. In the end, everybody was dancing in the foyer. It was so wild, it was so thrilling. People were so elated to be part of it. I taught at the Jewish day school here and there were 25 high school students who were part of the event.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were some people, some non-Jews \u2013 a considerable amount considering it\u2019s Winnipeg and it\u2019s a small community in general \u2013 but it would be nice if it was even more widespread. I think that, the more we do it, we increasingly make the name known, and it will open up even more to the general community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bronstein and Aronovitch would eventually like to see participants get to a point where they are able to lead a performance at the end of the festival. Bronstein envisions this as \u201ca participatory type of performance, where people who did dance classes can present what they learned and people who did the playing workshops can be a part of the band.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added, \u201cIt was a pleasure to work with our fantastic working committee and the Rady JCC. Without them, it could not have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rebeca Kuropatwa<\/strong> is a Winnipeg freelance writer.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winnipeg Klezfest co-producers Bev Aronovitch, left, and Miriam Bronstein. (photo from Rady JCC) After attending the week-long KlezKanada Laurentian retreat near Montreal, Miriam Bronstein and Beverly Aronovitch wondered, why not do the same in Winnipeg? And so, they began planning \u2013 the city\u2019s first Klezfest took place at the Rady Jewish Community Centre on Oct. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[788],"tags":[4957,4959,4958,2683,4956,4048],"class_list":["post-16192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-beverly-aronovitch","tag-finjan","tag-klezfest","tag-klezmatics","tag-miriam-bronstein","tag-winnipeg"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}