composer Na’ama Zisser on the JMI Archive

Tai Rona on the launch occasion for the JMI Archive at Stone Nest

The Jewish Music Institute (JMI) is the UK’s residence for Jewish music and for many years as a part of its Archive, JMI has been accumulating music sources from households, collectors and foundations. Since final yr, composer Na’ama Zisser has been the CEO and inventive director of JMI, and he or she has been spearheading a challenge aimed toward relaunching and revitalising the Archive. The gathering had been in a storage facility in Surrey, some 6,000 gadgets, vinyls, shellac discs, tapes, scores and manuscripts. With the help of the Rothschild Basis Hanadiv Europe, these supplies had been catalogued after which consultants helped to evaluate the gathering.

Na’ama explains that, as with different archives internationally, the choice was taken to protect a smaller variety of significant, uncommon, and traditionally necessary gadgets, somewhat than preserve hundreds in storage with out correct consideration or entry, particularly with no devoted bodily house. The JMI Archive doesn’t have a constructing, so it will have been a tough activity to maintain the total 6,000 gadgets in correct order. A small choice was chosen for the everlasting assortment, issues not commercially accessible or of historic significance similar to uncommon shellac discs of the world-renowned cantor Gershon Sirota, who died within the Holocaust, uncommon opera in Yiddish and subject recordings of Jewish ritual life within the Center East.

At a launch occasion final month, the Archive was dropped at Stone Nest in Soho, with a efficiency by Iranian-American singer Elana Sasson and a curated deep-listening set by DJ and composer Tai Rona, that includes many recordings not heard in a long time. The occasion closed with a late choice by JMI Archive curator Wajima Tapes.

The JMI is now an Arts Council England NPO and their work extends past the Archive. There’s a Youth Huge Band, led by Sam Eastmond (a giant band arranger for John Zorn and co-leader of The Spike Orchestra) whose performances have included ones on the Southbank Centre as a part of the London Jazz Competition, collaborating with main jazz musicians similar to saxophonist Jason Yarde. JMI additionally runs summer time colleges in klezmer, Yiddish music, and language. Its outreach work brings Jewish music into non-Jewish colleges throughout the UK, together with areas past London.

There’s an instructional ingredient to JMI’s work too, one of many world’s few Jewish Music Lectureships, based mostly at SOAS College of London, and funds analysis college students, together with the present JMI Archive supervisor, Edoardo Marcarini — a PhD candidate beforehand supported by the institute. They plan a 2026 educational convention on North African Jewish Music, mixing analysis and efficiency.

There’s additionally a renewed deal with new commissions with three initiatives within the pipeline. An upcoming Ladino/Judeo-Arabic challenge with help from Britten Pears Arts will characteristic composers Ana Silvera, Lydia Samuels, and Tomer Damsky and will likely be creating new work, with R&D starting in a number of weeks. Within the Autumn there will likely be a fee specializing in cantorial and classical music, with a jazz-based fee in 2026. There are additionally plans for a JMI file label to launch some initiatives. When Na’ama and I spoke, JMI was in the midst of a JustGiving marketing campaign to fundraise for all these numerous actions.

From the Archive: Haggadah: A Yemenite Residence Passover (Hallel/Psalms 113–118) Folkways Data FW 8921 (1953), recorded in Jerusalem by Sam Eskin, notes by Theodore Gaster, launched 1957

As a composer, Na’ama’s personal work has beforehand drawn on her Jewish musical identification. Her opera Mamzer/Bastard premiered on the Royal Opera in 2018, mixing classical composition with liturgical materials and a job written for a cantor. For her, the inventive and curatorial roles are deeply intertwined. She continues to compose and launch music by means of Orthodox Data, a Paris-based label.

Assist the JMI’s JustGiving marketing campaign

Recordings from the Archive

• Haggadah: A Yemenite Residence Passover (Hallel/Psalms 113–118) – Folkways Data FW 8921 (1953), recorded in Jerusalem by Sam Eskin, notes by Theodore Gaster, launched 1957. On YouTube
• Ballads, Marriage ceremony Songs, and Devotional Piyyutim of the Sephardic Jews of Tetuan and Tangier, Morocco (Alicia Benassayag de Bendayam) – Ethnic Folkways Data FE 4208, recorded by Henrietta Yurchenco. On YouTube
• Morasha: Conventional Jewish Musical Heritage. Contains Bar Mitzvah songs “Lemee zot nirshemet” and “Elohim Chay” (Ch. Dayan, Y. Sabagh, and A. Ben-Loulou). – Ethnic Folkways Data FE 4203. Recorded and annotated by Dr. Amnon Shiloah. Sung in Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Moroccan dialects, Turkish, Ladino, Kurdish. Launched 1978. On YouTube
• Chants Des Synagogues: La Haggada, Moroccan cantor Samy Elmaghribi and kids reciting Passover seder in French. Launched 1963. On YouTube