Research

As part of the development of klezmer at Manchester, we have an ongoing research agenda. This is interdisciplinary in nature – bringing together traditions of Performing Ethnomusicology (from Music) and Appropriate Methodology (from Education), as given focus through the lens of the klezmer revival.

In many ways, we see the development of klezmer-at-Manchester as what might be termed “Klez returns to college” building on Hankus Netsky’s “Klez goes to college” in which he reported on the development of klezmer ensembles in conservatoire contexts in the USA from the 1980s.

Our research is also concerned with what it might mean (for all those involved) when mostly non-Jewish music students become immersed (in a conservatoire /academic type context) in the musical cultures of klezmer.

We understand that these individuals will then develop their musical skills and understanding of klezmer in community contexts outside the university, and they will be doing so often for audiences consisting, in part, of members of the local Jewish communities for whom klezmer might be portrayed as a “familiar unfamiliar idiom”.

The development of these links between the university and the local communities represents a contribution to the university’s social engagement policy. Through the students’ immersion in the klezmer and Jewish worlds in Manchester and beyond, the klezmer-at-Manchester project has an important intercultural education purpose which seeks to combat anti-semitism by means of a positive engagement with this musical aspect of Jewish civilisation.

See also: UoM Research explorer

See also: Ellie Sherwood’s klezmer-focused MusB Dissertation (June 2014).

See also the documentary by Ellie Sherwood and Rob Foot, Klezmer in Manchester: People and Passions