FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Jewish People’s Philharmonic Chorus presents
“Jewish Heroes, Sung & Unsung”

NEW YORK CITY -- In the footsteps of its sold-out concert last spring, the Jewish People’s Philharmonic Chorus is returning to Symphony Space on Sun, May 31 at 4:30 pm. Tickets are $25 and $15. Founded in 1922, this intergenerational chorus is conducted by Binyumen Schaechter, and will sing a new program from its rich repertoire of Yiddish choral music with English translations provided throughout. He is the son of the widely renowned late Yiddish linguist Mordkhe Schaechter.

Founded in 1922, the chorus boasts members ranging in age from 15 to 85, and has made guest appearances at Alice Tully Hall, Shea Stadium, Ground Zero, the Museum of the City of New York and, most recently, at West Point Military Academy. There are students, grandparents, Canadians, Israelis, gays and straights, most of varying levels of Jewish observance, and even a couple of people who are not Jewish at all, but who are devoted to the music. Some people speak Yiddish, such as the several adult children of Holocaust survivors and late Yiddish poets and thinkers. Some speak no Yiddish. Their collective goal is to breathe life into this historic body of music work and make it live again.

This unlikely army of Yiddish singers gathers once a week at the social hall of a residence for the elderly on the Upper West Side to rehearse its dynamic repertoire, no less diverse and interesting than the singers, from exciting oratorios and comic operettas to labor anthems, beloved folksongs, and popular tunes.

This year's concert will highlight the works of the great Yiddish writers Sholom Aleichem, Dovid Edelstadt, Itsik Manger, and Peretz Miransky; and composers Michl Gelbart, Srul Glick, Mark Zuckerman, and Georg Friedrich Handel. Also in the program will be the rarely heard Wolf Younin/Maurice Rauch cantata Ester Hamalke ("Queen Esther"), featuring tenor soloist Cantor David Berger and pianist Amy Duran.

In addition, Di Shekhter-tekhter ("The Schaechter Daughters"), age 14 and 9, will perform selections from their show "Our Zeydas and Bubbas as Children," with which they have toured three continents over the past year.

This concert is dedicated to the memory of Alice Kogan, long-time irreplaceable JPPC performer and activist.

The JPPC will be performing at Symphony Space on Sunday, May 31, at 4:30 p.m. Tickets are $25 and $15. Symphony Space is located on New York City's Upper West Side, at 2537 Broadway near 95th Street. To buy tickets, visit http://www.symphonyspace.org/, or call the Symphony Space box office at 212-864-5400. For more information about the chorus, visit http://www.thejppc.org/.

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Bio on the musical director
Binyumen Schaechter, Director
bschaechter@nyc.rr.com
212-989-0212

BINYUMEN (BEN) SCHAECHTER (Conductor) is an award-winning composer of musicals and other songs which have been performed on five continents, with his music represented off-Broadway in NAKED BOYS SINGING (one of the longest-running shows in off-Broadway history), PETS! (Dramatic Publishing), THAT'S LIFE! (Outer Critics Circle nomination), TOO JEWISH? (nominated: Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Awards) and DOUBLE IDENTITY. His music has been recorded on a dozen CDs, including "IT HELPS TO SING ABOUT IT: Songs of Ben Schaechter & Dan Kael" (amazon.com).

As an actor, he was featured with Anna Deveare Smith in her one-woman show in Carnegie Hall. He has also entertained across North America and in Paris in his one-man show, THE SHTETL COMES TO LIFE. More recently, together with elder daughter Reyna, he toured FROM KINAHORA TO CONEY ISLAND, his musical revue about the Jewish experience in America, and with both daughters in OUR ZEYDAS AND BUBBAS AS CHILDREN http://youtube.com/user/ShekhterTekhter. He provided the translations for the first-ever DVD with Yiddish subtitles, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF HANK GREENBERG. He and his 3 sisters all speak only Yiddish with their total of 16 children. He is the son of the late great Yiddish expert, linguist and teacher, Dr. Mordkhe Schaechter.


Attn: Editor – More info.

Here’s our website:
http://www.thejppc.org/

We also have a facebook page, we’re on CD Baby and you can hear us on MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/jewishpeoplesphilharmonicchorus.

Here’s some info on Itche Goldberg:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itche_Goldberg

Here’s Miransky’s obit from the NYTimes:
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/16/obituaries/peretz-miransky-85-yiddish-literary-figure.html

And a few words about Srul Irving Glick:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srul_Irving_Glick

Please join me in Montreal
to celebrate the launch of my mother's memoir!

Register immediately:
by email: montreal.launch@azrieli.ca
by phone: 514-877-9784

Please join me in Toronto
to celebrate the launch of my mother's memoir!

Register immediately:
by email: toronto.launch@azrieli.ca
by phone: 416-223-0003

Thank you, Bergen!

Three Bergen Community College Students Awarded

for Literary Excellence

2009-10 Edition of Literary Journal The Labyrinth Debuts

(From left) Yuna Youn (of Palisades Park), Lynda Kraar (of Teaneck) and Amanda Viehmeyer (of Garfield) took home top honors in The Labyrinth’s literary competition.

With the debut of the 2009-10 edition of The Labyrinth, Bergen Community College’s literary journal, 25 student authors can add a new adjective to their portfolios: published.

Student authors submit their creative nonfiction, fiction and poetry pieces to The Labyrinth’s faculty advisers (Bergen professors James Zorn and Dorothy Altman), who work with a student editorial board to select entries from hundreds of submissions for inclusion in the publication.

Student editors then compile and oversee the production of the journal. The 2009-10 edition features 37 works by 25 authors.

At The Labyrinth’s April 30, 2009 launch event, prizes were awarded to the authors of the top works in each of the three submission categories. Two professors from a local university judged the 2009-10 entries: John Parras and Marthe Witte. Parras also attended the journal’s launch event and presented certificates and awards to the honorees.

The winners are:

• Nonfiction – Lynda Kraar (of Teaneck) for “Fashioning My Father After Myself”

• Fiction – Amanda Viehmeyer (of Garfield) for “Etiology”

• Poetry – Yuna Youn (of Palisades Park) for “Blushing Red”

“Both Professor Zorn and I are impressed with the level of writing talent at Bergen Community College and we congratulate the award winners,” Dr. Altman said. “Additionally, we are pleased to announce that we are seeing a rise in enrollment in our creative writing program and are adding additional courses to our curriculum.”

Many of The Labyrinth’s 25 contributors shared their works by reading them aloud at the April 30 launch. The 66-page anthology, The Labyrinth, is available through Bergen’s Department of English.

Bergen Community College is a public two-year coeducational college, enrolling more than 15,000 students in Associate in Arts, Associate in Science, and Associate in Applied Science degree programs and certificate programs. More than 10,000 students are enrolled in non-credit, professional courses through the Division of Continuing Education, the Institute for Learning in Retirement, the Philip J. Ciarco Jr. Learning Center, located at 355 Main Street, Hackensack, and Bergen at the Meadowlands, located at 1280 Wall Street West, Lyndhurst. Information about the College is available at www.bergen.edu or by phoning the Welcome Center at (201) 447-7200 .