Condolences to all those who lost friends and family in the terrorist attacks, and a speedy recovery to those injured.

Contents: Folk Retreat, Esther Haynes revisted, Folkus: Cecile Panzer, Chapungu, Zimria, FolkFilm, Buena Vista Social Club

It may not be Jacob's Ladder, but here's your chance to appear on the Friday night stage.

Thursday night: Karmiel Folk Klub; Friday eve: dinner together (if you want); Performances by YOU/Jam; Saturday: workshops/jams

B & B in Moshav Sarona for one or both nights. 2 beds/room; 2 rms per suite

Editorial

Four days have past since the devastating attack against targets in the United

States of America. Who is there among us who did not see the cataclysm! Maybe some of us have dear ones who were victims or who know others who are injured or killed. When the shock has passed, the grief and heartache will remain forever.

I am fortunate in that I have no one related to me for whom I must grieve.

But nevertheless, I am grieving. I was born in New York City and spent much of my childhood there. As an adult, I lived and worked in New York. I will always love it. Many are the times that I walked the streets of lower Manhattan. I loved the vibrant bustle of the World Trade Center. I love to explore its seemingly endless mazes of shops, corridors and buildings. I loved to emerge from one of the subways and take the elevator way up to the top. I loved to stand outside on the observation deck and hear the muted but powerful hum of the city all around me. Two months to the day before the tragedy, I took my children there and showed them everything.

We all know terrorism at first hand, for we live with it every minute. In the past, when the terrorists have struck, we have felt it very important to hold our folk clubs despite everything. This is as it should be. It is always vital to show our- selves that we will not be moved or demoralized by those who would seek to take our land away from us and exterminate the people of Israel.

But this time, something was different somehow. I just didn't feel like singing. I talked about it with Marc Gittelson and Carol Fuchs who run the Jerusalem folk club. We decided to wait a bit and see what other people were thinking. I phoned Ariela Orion and asked what she intended to do with the Tel Aviv folk club due to take place the day after the tragedy. She told me that she felt inclined to hold it, even though a couple of the performers had cancelled. She said that the folk club had continued during the Gulf War. Even if one person came, she felt it necessary to afford those who so desired to come if only for the sake of all supporting each other.

But all of the performers due to appear at both clubs seem to have felt the same way I did, and thus both were cancelled. Why was it that we were so affected, that we just couldn't sing? Maybe it was because the event was enough removed from us that we could for once see how others had fallen victim to the bestial practices of religious fanatics, all in the name of God. Maybe it was because the catas- trophe was so huge, so mind- boggling and so immediate, that there was no room left in our hearts for music.

Be that as it may, we were robbed of our music. Again. Perhaps a minor casualty among all the horror and bereavement and destruc- tion, but somehow symbolic in its own right.

But I say to you all that some way, somehow, we will go on. We are not dead yet and we shall not die. We will overcome our enemies and they shall be utterly defeated and destroyed. America and Israel will survive and recover. And I say to you that we shall sing again.

All of us at the Israel FolkStuff Society wish all of you a Shanah Tova and a year in which peace will come to all of us.

--Larry Gamliel

WHO DOESN'T REMEMBER ESTHER HAYNES?

She was only here two years, but who would forget Esther performing at the TAFC and Tzora with, among others, Shelley Ellen and Avery Ellisman? Some of us even harbor vintage copies of her fabulous Scudero- recorded Southern Comfort tape with Shelley.

We all wish her much success.

--Judi Ganchrow

Fifty women from South Korea and Canada sang Israeli songs, one hundred Croatians and Israelis sang Jewish Liturgical pieces and I, amongst ninety other Israelis and Yugoslavians, sang songs from Latin America. We were at the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, participating in the 19th Zimria [World Assembly of Choirs].

This year there were only seven choirs from abroad, and together with thirteen from Israel, we attended workshops run by highly qualified, renowned conductors from various parts of the world. The workshop in which our choir participated was conducted by Werner Pfaff who, though German, is an expert in Latin American music, having spent many years travelling through South America. His task was not an easy one as, in contrast to the other workshops, ours was composed of non-professional choirs who had no experience in the Latin American rhythms and dialects. Within one week we learned four very complicated songs from various South American countries, in different styles, and performed them with gusto at the evening concert. We all felt a tremendous sense of achievement and appreciated the patience and skill of Werner.

The workshops took place during the day and there were three or four "choir to choir" concerts each evening. The standard, especially of the choirs from abroad, was extremely high. The repertoire of each choir consisted of some classical pieces and, more interestingly, folk songs from their homeland. Most of the choirs from abroad dressed in magnificent national costume. The Catholic University Choir from Lublin, Poland, was outstanding and as there are no encores performed on stage, they continued singing in the foyer of the concert hall, after their performance, to everyone's delight. After every evening concert, the participants gathered at the cafeteria to sing communally till the early hours of the morning.

At the start of each evening concert, the International Choir, led by the Swiss conductor, Michael Gohl, led us all in "open singing." We were issued books containing folk songs from around the world and all 600 participants stood and sang in four-part harmony. He even had us dancing in the aisles. This was an amazing experience.

The climax of the week is the performances of the workshops. Three of them I described at the beginning of this article and two were performed at the closing concert at the JerusalemTheatre, in the presence of vardignitaries.

The Ra'anana Symphonette Orchestra accompanied the Polish and Israeli choirs who sang pieces by Mozart and the Colombian and other Israeli choirs sang the Requiem by Gabriel Faure. At the start of the concert we all stood for the "open singing" and sang Tzur Mishelo Akhalu followed by the Hymn to Freedom by Oscar Peterson - in four-part harmony, of course.

The Zimria brings together music lovers of all nations and is held every three years. We all hope that in three years from now we will have peace in this area and the full contingent of choirs will come from abroad.

In the meantime, I will continue to sing with the Shira Choir of which I am a member. We are looking for new members, especially tenors, so if you are interested please contact me.

--Judi Lewis

Who is this quiet woman? Rumor has it that she was looking to travel to Alaska on a barge. It seems that she loves to travel unconventional routes to exotic locations way before they become mass tourist destinations. She led the way to the Galapagos Isles, Outer Mongolia, African Safaris, and found her way around China with her trusty guidebook. She also back- packed South East Asia and the Australia outback.

She's always there to lend a hand and support our favorite venues with her presence. Her love of music extends way beyond folk, and she is an opera and classical music freak, regularly frequenting the music center in Jerusalem's Mishkenot Sha'ananim. When asked what she especially liked about the local folk music scene, she said she didn't know. Nevertheless, she still wins the folk community's Grammy award for being such a quality audience and non-performer. She has resided here since 1954, and when asked how she has survived living here for so long and going on all these exotic trips, she claims that it's all because of her credit card and - hey, this is the land of miracles!

--Harold Jacobs

The sun's going down among the trees and statues; two men are singing and playing gentle Zimbabwean music... And it's Jerusalem! On August 12^th, an unusual exhibition opened in Jeru- salem's Botanic Gardens (in the Nayot neighbourhood). Called Chapungu, after the distinctive Zimbabwean bird, this is a travelling gallery of stone sculpture from the former Rhodesia (borders on South Africa, for those of you who only recall those old school atlases in the 1960s and '70s -- remember all those pink patches, signs of English colonialism?)...

The sound of the mbira, somewhere between a keyboard and a percussive instrument, is the sound of flowing water -- much appreciated, I must say, on a warm summer evening in the Middle East. The two men sang quietly in Shona, providing a constant, almost hypnotic background to the huge crowd excitedly greeting each other. In the dying light of the day, we walked from statue to statue, reading the expla- nations or extracts of poetry that accompanied most of them. Some of the pieces are serious and beautiful, others are simply playful: either way, they are mostly thought provoking. The influence of Zimbabwean mythology is still strong, it would seem, even for sculptors in the new millennium. Looking at many of these statues, it's moving to see the mix in them of the traditional and the modern.

Back to the music. Because the mayor of Jerusalem was late in arriving, we were treated first to a performance by the group Taruwona. The men who had been singing and playing until then remained on the stage, but they were joined by a mother and daughter team who delighted the crowd with their exciting singing. They gave us a set that covered songs in both Shona and English, touched upon the widespread AIDS epidemic in Africa in a heart- wrenching modern piece, and enthusias- tically rejoiced at this cultural contact between Zimbabwe and Israel. The traditional harmonies, sung in an understated manner, were uplifting.

The main singer is the wife of the director of the gallery/exhibition, an example of inter-racial harmony that, sadly, is all too rare in their troubled country. Mrs. Guthrie (sorry, I couldn't figure out her first name) has not only a fine voice, but also a great personality, a smile that lit up the sky, and true physical grace. Dressed in what I took to be a modern adaptation of traditional costume (I could easily imagine my daughter Lisa in one of those!), she and her daughter danced beautifully to the rhythm of the mbira, moving their hands as exquisitely as any ballet dancer I've ever seen. This is obviously music to listen for in the future. Forget the speeches: we did. What mattered was the feast for eye and ear.

-- Jill Rogoff

Although it's not exactly folk music, it is music made by folks and its soundtrack won a Grammy, and Ry Cooder got these old guys together after many years of oblivion brought on by the Cuban political climate.

When I asked my brother in Baltimore what he though of the movie The Buena Vista Social Club which played in Israel this spring, this was his reply:

Yeah the Buena Vista Social Club is highly recommended. Although it is a documentary and a bit too long (Wim Wenders trade- mark), the music is incredible, as are the individuals that are profiled. Also, one gets a true sense of the decay in Cuban society that has occurred under the Castro regime, without the movie ever discussing the politics. Life in Cuba is reflected through the camera, and the stories and music of the people. This music, so rich and vibrant in the 1950s has been in a state of dormancy since the Commies came to town. The buildings are crumbling, the cars are pre 60s, there is little food and poverty is rampant, but what a grand city Havana must have been.

Ruben Gonzalez is a real maestro on piano, and Ibrahim Ferrar is like a Latin Nat King Cole. We, as well as lots of eclectic people thought the movie was great, but we went with another couple and they just didn't get into it. So I don't know what to tell you. I don't think kids would dig it, especially having to read all the subtitles, but it is an absolute must see for you. Also, check out the guitar player named Campay Segundo, who claims he has been smoking cigars since he was five years old when his grandma turned him on. The scenes when they play with Ry Cooder will blow you away.

--Harold & Fred Jacobs

Anyone seen a film called Songcatcher? It's about a musicologist at the turn of the century who discovers that the English ballads she has been studying have been preserved and localized in the mountains of western North Carolina. If you have the chance to see this film, you should. The music is wonderful and permeates the entire story.

--Dick Jay (chieftain of San Diego Folk Heritage)

Janet Lerner's website find: http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/archives/indc/popquiz/2001/pop0615.html

Refuah Shlema: to Judi Ganchrow after her hip surgery.

Happy Birthday to: Sandy Cash, Larry Gamliel, Gilead & Uziahu Gamliel, Eliot Goldstein, Joanna Katzen, Susan Noy, Jill Rogoff, Natan Shor, Vernon Whetstone

NOT TRAD ADS - fee is NIS 10 (NIS 5 for members).

**SHELLEY ELLEN - guitarlessons, also available for performances (03) 674-5356. **Jill Rogoff's THE CELTIC CRADLE and ACROSS THE NARROW SEAS (ALC 129) are available on cassette and CD. Tel/Fax (02) 679-0410.

**SUZALEH'S SILK ART - Glassed and Framed, modestly sized and modestly priced, door signs, mazal tovs, etc. Handmade by Sue Tourkin-Komet (02)676-3346.

DISCLAIMER: FolkNotes is the official publication of the Israel FolkStuff Society. Views are those of the writers, not necessarily those of IFS.

FolkNotes and all of the articles, photographs and material contained therein

are, unless otherwise noted, copyrighted by IFS 2001.

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FolkNotes Staff: Sherry Whetstone, Larry Gamliel, Carol Fuchs, Cecile Panzer