12-28-19 Klezmer Special 33 With Henry Sapoznik
I have been doing the annual WBJC Klezmer show since 1986 on the Saturday evening that falls during Khanukah. I have always admired the work of Henry Sapoznik and wanted to interview him. Truthfully Klezmer music is not my field though I like it very much and have dabbled in it. (You might even say I too have ‘drimpled’) But I have always loved Yiddish culture, language, movies and music. Though my mother was born in Montreal she reads, writes and speaks Yiddish as did her parents. I’m not sure if my father wrote in Yiddish but he certainly spoke the language. On the other hand myself and all of my siblings were all taught Hebrew…the language of the future and amazingly enough we are all fluent! What I know of Yiddish comes from learning German in music school and combining that with Hebrew! The point of this is that I have always been fascinated by what I was not taught as a child. Yiddish was the language my parents spoke when they didn’t want us to understand.
Since the first days of the Klezmer show I have always wanted to interview Henry Sapoznik. I enjoyed his enthusiastic performances and also his amazing scholarship. His work on Dave Tarras, and Avenue A to the Great White Way is phenomenal. So as they say after 36 years ‘schon zeit’. Kati and I got into the Kia and drove five hours to the foothills of the Catskills, aka the Hebrew Himalayas, to have a chat and share it with y’all. I hope you enjoyed the show. It was a lot of work but I think worth it.
We had some unused audio which was not used in the show which is worth listening to…we simply ran out of time.
Thanks Henry, It was more than worth the drive.
