David Dalle
Thursday January 25th, 2024 with David Dalle
Silent Tears - The Last Yiddish Tango; Taraf Syriana, and more!

On today's show we will be looking at several Canadian albums which showcase how cultures move around, interact, and create something new. The first album we will look at is "Silent Tears - The Last Yiddish Tango" by the Payadora Tango Ensemble. This 2023 album takes poetry mostly written during the 1990's by a group of women, all Holocaust survivors, and residents of Toronto's Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care. It was a form of therapy for these aging women who experienced unimaginable horror in their youth. Some of the poetry is also by Molly Applebaum, who wrote a memoir based on her diary about being hidden in terrible and abusive conditions during the Holocaust in Poland. She emigrated to Canada in 1948 and is 93 now. I thought it was an interesting concept to set these poems to Tango music, but I had not realized that Tango music was very popular in Poland during the interwar period from 1918 until 1939. Polish Tango was mostly composed and performed by Jews, and had influences from Klezmer. This entire fascinating world was driven into oblivion by the Holocaust. Most of the music is by Canadian violinist Rebekah Wolkstein, but there are also some compositions by Artur Gold, one of the most popular composers of Polish Tango during the 20's and 30's. He was murdered in Treblinka in 1943. The other album we will focus on is by Taraf Syriana, an ensemble of musicians from Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, Moldova and elsewhere. Most of them now reside in Montreal. Their self-titled 2022 album features a meeting of Arabic, Romani, and Eastern European music--mostly instrumental with a few songs sung by Romanian Dan Armeanca and Syrian-Canadian Ayham Abou Ammar. All this and a lot of other wonderful music!