South African Jewish Music center Collection

Bio

The South African Jewish Music center Collection is a centre whose aim is to preserve the heritage of Jewish music in its South African context. In 2011, the collection of the South African Jewish Music Centre was donated to DOMUS by Mrs. Fay Singer, hence the Fay Singer South African Jewish Music Centre Collection.

The Centre has been active in promoting the study and performance of Jewish music. Under its banner, Fay Singer started collating material that grew to become the South African Jewish Music Archive. The material in this archive includes, amongst others things, gramophone recordings of South African and international Jewish music, and music and scores donated to the Centre by local synagogues, cantors and other individuals. Due to negotiations between former Stellenbosch University music student Annemie Stimie and Fay Singer, the archive of the South African Jewish Music Centre was transferred to DOMUS.

On 12 March 2012, Fay Singer was invited to present a colloquium on the South African Jewish Music Centre and Klezmer music. During this occasion Fay Singer gave an account of the origin and history of the South African Jewish Music Centre, followed by an introduction to Klezmer music. In the latter instance Matthew Reid from the group Playing with Fire, accompanied the presentation with clarinet performances of Klezmer music.

In her research into Jewish music in Cape Town, she found a confluence of many other musical cultures. By establishing the South African Jewish Music Centre, her aim was to promote the study and performance of Jewish music of all kinds: Synagogue music, Yiddish songs, Sephardi melodies (representing the Spanish tradition), Ashkenasic (the Eastern European tradition), Chassidic as well as contemporary Hebrew music.
The South African Jewish Music Centre was inaugurated on 17 December 1992 in Cape Town. A year later it was affiliated to the Jewish Music Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) University of London.

ZAStellenbosch, South Africa

Contact

+27218082597
University of Stellenbosch
Profile added by Ano Shumba on 08 Oct 2015
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