Class Recordings Archived HERE
Join Michelle Alany and Rabbi Jonathan Seidel for a journey through the greater Jewish Musical World, as we explore the rich instrumental and vocal traditions of North Africa, the Balkans, Turkey, Greece, Iraq, and Spain.
This class is a journey and dialogue that explores history, and musical traditions and syncretism, through the lens of Jewish musicology and community identity. Within the class setting we’ll have an opportunity to meet with an array of wonderful guest musicians and musicologists who are warm friends and colleagues.
Michelle Alany is a skilled Klezmer, Sephardic violinist and vocalist. As a performer, she has led various iterations of her own band for years, culminating in the group known as Michelle Alany and the Mystics. Her career has been an exemplar of growth, exploration, collaboration and crossing music boundaries. Beginning with her early foundations and degrees in Western classical music, she excelled as a full-time professional touring violinist, composer, bandleader and singer in many languages. Michelle fluidly bridges music from different worlds with her deeply rooted sense of Jewish music as a living tradition, to incorporate rich inspirations of folk music from Mediterranean, Balkan, and Middle Eastern traditions after years of study with mentors, workshops, communities and her own research. She is a committed interpreter of Sephardic music, having hosted Sephardic music festivals with arts grants in Austin, TX, and performed as a featured guest at special events and festivals in various communities in the Southwest. She also took part and initiated many cross-cultural collaborations and studies during her international touring and several residencies in Spain and in the US.
Rabbi Jonathan Seidel, Ph.D. is the Rosh haYeshiva of the Aquarian Minyan Yeshiva and is a trained Hazzan. Rabbi Jonathan has sung in Celtic, Ladino, Yiddish and Hebrew performing groups. He has taught numerous classes in Jewish music and liturgy, including musicological tours of Sephardic and Mizrachi music – in Berkeley, Tucson and Eugene.