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Dan Rosenberg: Music Producer / Arts Journalist / Publicist-Media Relations
Recent Yiddish Glory News:
June 2022: Check out some of our new videos from our project, "Refugee Stories" featuring songs of Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust who were welcomed to Central Asia, arranged by cellist Beth Silver. This project was made possible by the generous support of the Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts:
"A Priest Was Murdered in Kalisz"
"The Execution of Hitler: The Brown Haman"
February 2022: Yiddish Glory on BBC's World Service: Hear the incredible story about Moisei Beregovsky’s expeditions during WWII to collect songs from Holocaust survivors - musical testimonies of Nazi atrocities that became the source material for Yiddish Glory (The story starts at 15:40 into the broadcast)
September 2021: Six Degrees Records releases the single, "Yom Kippur Without Fascists" featuring the Payadora Tango Ensemble, a satirical song that was written by a Jewish refugee in Almaty, Kazakhstan in 1945 to celebrate the end of World War II. Learn more about this song from this interview on CBC's "As It Happens" (segment starts at 34 min)
January 2021: Check out the mini-documentary about our latest project: Transnistrian Ghetto Songs - music that documented hunger, a typhus epidemic and atrocities that were committed in ghettos and concentration camps in the region
Nov 2020: Six Degrees Records releases the single "I Am A Typhus Louse," a comedic song written in a Transnistrian Ghetto in 1942 that described the horrific epidemic from the perspective of an anti-fascist insect. Here is the video for that song, with Psoy Korolenko and the Payadora Tango Ensemble as lice.
Feb 2020: Anna Shternshis wins University of Toronto President's Impact Award for her work on the Yiddish Glory project, giving public voice to those who created music during the Holocaust
Feb 2020 Yiddish Glory named as one of the 50 best albums of the past 5 years
Dec 2019: Yiddish Glory wins "Fiddler on the Roof Award" and named "Cultural Event of the Year" in Russia
Jan 2019: Yiddish Glory was nominated for a Grammy Award: Best World Music Album in 2019
Summer 2018 Yiddish Glory nominated for "Best World Music Album"/Preis de deutschen schallplattenkritik (Prize of the German Record Critics)
YIDDISH GLORY has been featured in over 600 reviews, news, radio, and TV features from around the world. Most are listed here:
RADIO:
Cafe International currently airs weekly:
CFBX in Kamloops, BC Canada (Mondays at 12:30pm Pacific/3:30pm Eastern)
OHM in Charleston, SC, USA (Sundays at 9am Eastern)
CBF WebRadio in Portugal
Tuesdays at 05:00am GMT (midnight eastern)
Thursdays 01:00pm GMT (8am eastern)
Fridays at 05:00pm GMT (noon eastern)
Saturdays at 09:00am GMT (4am eastern)
Cafe International also airs regularly during these shows:
PBS-FM in Australia during Global Village Sundays (5-7pm / 3am-5am Eastern)
WCBN-FM in Ann Arbor, MI, USA during Dromedary Express Sundays (11am-noon)
KBOO-FM in Portland, OR, USA during the Slavic Community Hour Sundays (9-10am Pacific/Noon-1pm eastern)
KUPR-FM in Albuquerque, NM, USA during The Strange Land Tuesdays (7-9pm Mountain/9-11pm Eastern and Saturdays 2-4am Mountain/4-6pm Eastern)
KOPN-FM in Colombia, MO, USA during World Woman Sundays (5-7pm Central/6-8pm Eastern)
LISTEN ONLINE:
Cafe International's 8-part series on music from Ukraine on Apple Podcasts:
Episode 1: An interview with singer Mariana Sadovska about trying to reach friends and family members trapped in war zones, and performing benefit concerts to help Ukrainian refugees
Episode 2: An interview with Yuri Bukovinets of the Hudaki Village Band about creating music during wartime - and the millions of Ukrainians that are internally displaced due to Russia's unprovoked war
Episode 3: An interview with DJ/Music producer Yuriy Gurzhy about Ukraine's Executed Renaissance and his album Foxtroty
Episode 4: An interview with Julian Kytasty about the history of the bandura
Episode 5: About the Yiddish songs of Arkady Gender, featuring interviews with Christian Dawid, Sebastian Schulman and more
Episode 6: An interview with University of Toronto professor Anna Shternshis about what we can learn from songs written in Ukraine during World War II that documented crimes against humanity committed by the Nazis.
Episode 7: An interview with Dakhabrakha's Marko Halanevych and their manager Iryna Gorban about how the group has become cultural ambassadors for Ukraine.
Episode 8: An interview with Professor Maria Sonevytsky of Bard College about Ukrainian music at the Eurovision Song Contest and about music from the Indigenous Crimean Tatar minority – one that was ethnically cleansed from that peninsula in 1944 under the rule of Josef Stalin.
Cafe International - Lhasa's "La Llorona" - a 25th Anniversary Special
A look back at the remarkable but tragically short career of Lhasa de Sela. Her groundbreaking album, La Llorona – which went on to go platinum in Canada - turns 25 this year. Her music is haunting and captivating - and as fresh as when it was recorded in 1997. We’ll feature an interview with Lhasa from just after La Llorona was released, and hear how she grew up, living on the back of a school bus, traveling across Mexico and the United States before moving to Montreal. Also on the program, two special guests look back on Lhasa's influential career: Philly Markowitz, former host of the CBC's radio program "Roots and Wings" and award winning singer and actress, Amanda Martinez. (August 2022)
Cafe International: Goran Bregovic - Three Letters from Sarajevo, celebrating the diversity of the city’s past, and also a stark warning: so other places don’t repeat the mistakes of Yugoslavia. We will hear from Goran Bregovic, the three violinists on the new album, Tunisia’s Zied Zouari, Israel’s Gershon Leizerson, and Serbia’s Mirjana Neskovic, plus professor Dalibor Misina (author of Shake Rattle and Roll on Yugoslav rock music) and Marija Vitas from Radio Belgrade to discuss the historical importance of Goran Bregovic’s career around the world, and in the former Yugoslavia. (November 2018)
Afropop Worldwide Goes to the Grammys: Reporter Dan Rosenberg takes us to the 2019 Grammy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles and speaks to the nominees in the World Music category, Fatoumata Diawara, Bombino, the Soweto Gospel Choir, Seun Kuti and Yiddish Glory, about how they are using their voices to combat human-rights abuses, political corruption, genocide and violence against women (July 2019)
Cafe International: The Dybbuk Documentary on Toronto's Classical FM: 45-minute documentary on an ancient ghost story that has become the most iconic play in the history of Jewish drama, featuring interviews with acrtresses Marilyn Lightstone and Efrat Ben Zur; scholars Gabriella Safran, Anna Shternshis and Olga Gershenson; members of the Gesher Theater, plus composers Frank London, Ofer Ben Amots and conductor Andrew Mogerlia. (September 2018)
Afropop Worldwide: Tobago's #MeToo Trailblazer: Calypso Rose. For six decades Calypso Rose has been one of the Caribbean’s leading feminists and human rights advocates. Now, at the age of 78, she's touring the world with songs about sexual assault, workplace discrimination, and some thoughts on Donald Trump. In this report, Afropop correspondent Dan Rosenberg talks with Calypso Rose about using music as a weapon for social change, and how Rose collaborated with fashion designer Anya Ayoung Chee to transform "Leave Me Alone" into a political movement. 20-minute documentary, part of Afropop's 30th Anniversary. Listen HERE. (May, 2018)
Afropop Worldwide: The Voice of Protest - Betsayda Machado Sings Against Hunger in Venezuela. The songs of Betsayda Machado, the leading voice of Afro-Venezuelan music, address many of the most painful topics of daily life of her country: hunger, poverty, shortages of basic medicine, and deadly street riots – stemming from the current economic and political crisis in Venezuela. They talk about its consequences on a gut level: empty store shelves, and the devastation of parents unable to feed their children. Some in Venezuela who have spoken out have faced retribution, but that hasn’t deterred Betsayda Machado. 23-minute Afropop Closeup. Listen HERE. (January 2018)
Radio Report on CBC's The World This Weekend on how Tobago's Calypso Rose, and how her music has become a rallying cry to end unequal pay and sexual violence. Listen HERE. (January 2018)
Radio report on CBC's The World This Weekend on guitarist Vadim Kolpakov's amazing journey from Saratov Russia, to his musical collaboration with Madonna on using music to fight bigotry. Listen HERE. (November 2017)
Latest Episodes of Cafe International Radio heard on WCBN-FM (Ann Arbor, MI) KBOO-FM (Portland, OR), WRFI-FM (Ithaca, NY) WSFM (Asheville, NC), KUPR-FM (Albuquerque, NM) and other radio stations:
CAFE INTERNATIONAL: FATOUMATA DIAWARA discusses her new album, "Fenfo", the world's migrant crisis, women's rights in Mali and more (July 2018)
CAFE INTERNATIONAL: INTI-ILLIMANI, NANO STERN and 50 YEARS OF CHILEAN PROTEST MUSIC, featuring interviews with Jorge Coulon nd Nano Stern (December 2017)
CAFE INTERNATIONAL: ON THE 79th ANNIVERSARY OF KRISTALLNACHT: THE REMARKABLE STORY OF HOW RAINER LOTZ AND THE SEMER ENSEMBLE RESCUED MUSIC NEARLY DESTROYED BY THE GESTAPO - 44 minute special presentation on Canada's ClassicalFM (November 2017)
CAFE INTERNATIONAL: PLENA LIBRE AND THE MUSIC THAT IS SPEARHEADING PUERTO RICO'S RECOVERY (October 2017)
CAFE INTERNATIONAL: Anti-Fascist Klezmer, with guest DANIEL KAHN, on confronting white supremacists in Charlottesvile, the 99% and much more (September 2017)
CAFE INTERNATIONAL: DECONSTRUCTING VOCAL SAMPLING, with Rachel Faro, Rene Baños Pascual, and more (August 2017)
CAFE INTERNATIONAL VISITS YIDSTOCK (with guests Frank London, Eleanor Reissa, and Aaron Lansky) (July 2017)
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Articles in The Huffington Post:
21 BEST PICTURE WINNERS THE OSCARS GOT WRONG (March 8, 2017)
40 THAT THE GRAMMY AWARDS FORGOT: 2016's BEST ALBUMS FROM AROUND THE WORLD (Feb 17, 2017)
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Yiddish Glory was just nominated for a Grammy Award: Best World Music Album
Six Degrees Records released Yiddish Glory in 2018 - Listen to music and read the incredible story of how songs of World War II and the Holocaust were brought back to life.
Here is a short film about the project
Yiddish Glory named one of 2018's 10 best albums by Songlines Magazine
Yiddish Glory: During World War II, ethnomusicologists in the Soviet Union risked their lives collecting songs of the Holocaust and Jewish soldiers in the Red Army. The songs detail the Holocaust as it happened, and often deal with revenge on a visceral level. There is even a song in the collection that was written by a 10-year-old orphan who lost his family in the Holocaust. Following the war, the researchers were arrested by Stalin, their work confiscated, and they died thinking these songs were lost forever. Miraculously, decades later, the collection was discovered in a former Soviet archive. The Yiddish Glory project, headed by Anna Shternshis with a team of virtuoso musicians from the worlds of folk, classical, jazz, Jewish and Roma music came together to reconstruct and record these songs. The project includes Psoy Korolenko, Sophie Milman, Russia's Trio Loyko (guitar, piano, guitar), Alexander Sevastian (accordion), Shalom Bard (clarinet), and David Buchbinder (trumpet). The story was covered extensively in The New Yorker, ABC News, Forbes, The New York Times, NPR the CBC (TV, "The National" here, radio here and article here), BBC World Service, the Globe and Mail, RFI (Radio France International), ORF (Austrian National Radio), Deutschland Radio (German Public Radio), ABC Australia, NRC (The Netherlands), Haaretz and 城市電視 (TalentVisionTV) (in Mandarin). The world premiere was presented by Show One Productions in Januuary 2016 to a sold-out concert hall, and the ensemble was recently invited to perform live on Toronto's Classical 96.3 FM, and here is a fantastic video of the event:
Yiddish Glory live on TV/radio at Classical 96.3 FM
On August 28, 2018, Yiddish Glory performed in Toronto's Koerner Hall at the Royal Conservatory of Music to a sold-out audience to open the 2018 Ashkenaz Festival.
Yiddish Glory debuted at #5 in April 2018 on World Music Charts Europe, received the "Top of the World" honour in Songlines Magazine (June 2018) and was nominated for "Best World Music Album" Preis de deutschen Schallplattenkritik (Prize of the German Record Critics) (Summer 2018)
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Biography:
As a journalist, I have travelled to over 40 countries, reporting on folk music from virtually every corner of the globe for radio programs including Afropop Worldwide, PRI's The World, The CBC's Global Village, NPR's Artbeat, and numerous publications such as The Times (UK), fRoots, Islands, Outpost, Global Rhythm, Sing Out!, Dirty Linen, The Detroit Metro Times, Tower-Pulse, The Huffington Post, and the Rough Guides.
Upon returning home, I'd often get calls and emails from readers and listeners saying, "Where can I find this music?" Much of it wasn't on iTunes, and virtually none of it was in stores, so I approached a number of record labels to begin releasing it on CD. Over the past 15 years, I have produced, written liner notes, or worked as executive producer on over 60 recordings (including over 40 CDs for the Rough Guide series). For more information, visit the "About Me" page, and to learn more about the Rough Guide to World Music series, visit World Music Network.
BAN THE (IMAGINARY) FLIGHTS (Featured on the homepage of the Huffington Post on Oct 21-22, 2014).
OTHER CDs:
THE ROUGH GUIDE TO ETHIOPIAN JAZZ (June 2016) Swinging Addis is thriving once again, with the distinctive ancient-sounding tones of Ethiopia blending with modern jazz interpretations to create a totally unmistakable fusion. From the legendary innovators Mulatu Astatke and Getatchew Mekuria to today’s new generation of artists, this Rough Guide celebrates this burgeoning and most captivating of musical scenes.
THE ROUGH GUIDE TO MUSIC WITHOUT FRONTIERS (Oct 7, 2014) A 2-CD set dedicated to music from stateless peoples. It features music from Kurdistan, Palestine, Tibet, Zanzibar, as well as the Roma, Garifuna, Basque and more and was released with the help of the UNPO (Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization). Also available on iTunes.
THE ROUGH GUIDE TO THE MUSIC OF MALI (March 25, 2014) A 2-CD set featuring Bassekou Kouyate, Fatoumata Diawara, Oumou Sangare, Ali Farka Toure, Toumani Diabate, Samba Toure & more. Also available on iTunes.
THE ROUGH GUIDE TO ARABIC REVOLUTIONARY MUSIC (March, 2013) is a 2-CD set devoted to music that galvanized the Arab Spring. Also available on iTunes.
