SECOND AVENUE KLEZMER ENSEMBLE COMMISSIONS COMPOSER MYRON FINK TO CREATE A SYMPHONIC PIECE FEATURING KLEZMER THEMES

San Diego’s Second Avenue Klezmer Ensemble has commissioned composer, Myron Fink, to create a symphonic piece that incorporates the musical themes of Klezmer. The composition, A BINTL LIDER, (A BUNDLE OF SONGS) was premiered with the La Jolla Symphony in February, 2002. The cost of the commission is being partially underwritten by the Multi-Cultural Entry program of the California Arts Council.

Fink’s music for opera and theater has been performed across the United States and internationally. His fourth opera, THE CONQUISTADOR, commissioned by the San Diego Opera, was premiered with great success in 1997. With that classical background, the thought of composing such a piece would never have occurred to him had he not known Robert Zelickman, clarinetist with the Second Avenue Klezmer Ensemble, and been excited by the group’s classical grounding.

The idea for the commission of the work stemmed from Zelickman’s association with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra. Its conductor, Jung-Ho Pak, was preparing an evening devoted to ethnic music and wanted to include the Second Avenue Klezmer Ensemble, and Zelickman as its clarinetist, in the program. Zelickman’s search for an orchestral work based on a Klezmer ensemble revealed that no such piece existed in the symphonic repertoire. Since time was short, Zelickman played some solo freylakhs instead with the orchestra. But the seed was planted and the more Zelickman thought about the need for such a composition, the more it excited him. Who better to help bring such a work into the repertoire than the classically trained Second Avenue Klezmer Ensemble? So, after talking to his partner, singer Deborah Davis, they ‘popped the question’ to Myron Fink, and he said ”yes.”

“What’s happening here,” says Fink,” is similar to Liszt’s reaching for the gypsy tunes he’d grown up with when he created the HUNGARIAN RHAPSODIES. Brahms and Dvorak also incorporated folk themes into the literature of classical music.”

“Music needs to grow and change,” says Deborah Davis, the ensemble’s singer. “Because of our classical training, it seemed natural to move Klezmer from the wedding hall to the symphony hall.”