Mitzvah Music is offering the following Y2K compliant Jewish music classes and lectures for next year. Taught by Mark Levy, these have been well-received on both east and west coasts at adult ed and elder hostel programs. Mark provides class notes each session and uses vintage recordings and videotapes to illustrate the exciting music of these eras, performed by the originators themselves. Please contact us if your group can schedule a class or lecture (see below). Course lengths can be tailored to meet group needs. Mark is also available for live performances!

Jews 'n' Jazz Class

Al Jolson, Fanny Brice, Irving Berlin, Sophie Tucker, George Gershwin, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Dinah Shore-- only a few of the 20th century's jazz giants who were of Jewish background-- is the subject of a new course taught by Mark Levy. The course will trace the development or America's Jewish jazz singers, composers, and instrumentalists through the Dixieland, ragtime, swing, bebop, modern and post-modern periods. Hear rare recordings of these innovators and see footage from early talking pictures of their later Hollywood appearances.

Klezmer 101

Ever wonder where klezmer music came from? What the original bands sounded like? What life was like for the early klezmorim? If you like the klezmer sound and want to hear, see, and learn more about it, Klezmer 101 is a course designed to fill your "kop" with the tunes and history of this increasingly popular dance music.

Taught by music collector and performer Mark Levy, Klezmer 101 utilizes vintage recording, videotapes and live performances to uncover the background, derivation, and theory of the music which no wedding was without in even the smallest shtetl of eastern Europe. From the roaming life of the klezmorim in the old country to the immigration of many fine players to the United States, Klezmer 101 traces the music from its early beginnings to the current craze of klez camps and contemporary "kapelyes" (ensembles).

Mark has several other music presentations: Music of the Holocaust (Songs of Hope and Resistance), Songs of the Jewish Immigrants (Columbus' Medina), Yiddish Songs of Work and Labor (Bin Ikh Mir A Shnayderl), Romantic Folk Ballads of the Sephardim (Romancero), and many holiday programs throughout the year.