During my moving in, in August, I spotted a 4 day festival of Klezmer Music in Vilnius, so off I went. It's good to see Jewish life coming back to Vilnius. What is Klezmer? Go here (wikipedia) and here for when I met it by chance in Oxford.
A friend pointed out that it was being held in a courtyard very close to where the Jews had been rounded up in the war. But obviously this was a much happier occasion, with good weather, lots of young people and kids (skinheads clearly didn't understand what klezmer was), and there was food and beer.
The first night there was a home grown Klezmer band, plus an American trumpeter. It was mostly dance music and everybody hopped around on the grass. There were seats but they had long been filled. It was really good.
The second night was not so lively, mostly rather formal singers singing in Yiddish rather seriously. In the photos, you can see a rather small man, paired with a rather tall woman. The songs were funny, but the pairing made it even funnier. But at the end a Russian woman singer was very good at working the crowd and had us singing along anyway. By then it was more like a Saturday night in a Russian restaurant where everybody sang popular songs. Photos here.
The third night was some new composition in the style of modern music, too modern for me. The US trumpeter ended by saying that the piece had been the most difficult he had ever played. I left early.
I had to miss the fourth night, which was a shame, when the band of the first night came back.
