Album Launch Concert and Party
and all the days were purple, a new album by composer Alex Weiser, features songs which set Yiddish and English poems to music that search for the divine while reflecting on the longing, beauty, and tumult of life. Poets of the texts on the album include Anna Margolin, Edward Hirsch, Rachel Korn, and Abraham Sutzkever. Alex Weiser is YIVO’s Director of Public Programs, and in many ways these new songs grew out of his work with Jewish music and Yiddish literary culture at YIVO.
Performances by the musicians featured on and all the days were purple, Eliza Bagg, Lee Dionne, Maya Bennardo, Hannah Levinson, Hannah Collins, and Mike Compitello, will include a selection of songs from the new album, as well as the premiere of new arrangements of Yiddish and Hebrew songs from the YIVO Archives by composers Joseph Engel, Moses Milner, Lazare Saminsky, and Mikhail Gnesin, arranged by Weiser for the occasion.
The album, which will be released by Cantaloupe Music on April 12, 2019, will be available for pre-release purchase and signing after the concert at a special reception with food inspired by the poetry on the album.