![\"Yale](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Strom_t700.jpg\")
<\/a>One of the most passionate champions of klezmer music is San Diego\u2019s own Yale Strom, a 2013 Jewish American History Month Local Hero honoree. Strom, who is an artist-in-residence in the Jewish Studies program at San Diego State University, is without a doubt a renaissance man for the ages. Violinist, composer, filmmaker, author, photographer and playwright, he is an artist with a mind that exudes brilliance and a creativity that seems to be boundless.<\/p>\n
To Strom, klezmer is more than just notes on a page. He sees it as a style of music steeped in history, one that robustly adds to our cultural tapestry.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a people. The music is as old as the language of Yiddish. It is as old as the words, \u2018Jew\u2019 and \u2018Moslem,\u2019 using ancient Semitic scales. Yes, it sounds Middle Eastern and it should,\u201d he said. \u201cKlezmer music is an extension of who I am and my culture, and a way to communicate to all kinds of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1981, Strom, who is considered a revivalist and the world\u2019s leading ethnographer-artist of klezmer music and history, founded his own klezmer band, Hot Pstromi (a play on his name). As the band\u2019s website explains, Hot Pstromi has a sound that is \u201ca fusion of traditional klezmer, new Jewish music, Gypsy, khasidic, world beat and Balkan music.\u201d<\/p>\n
Strom\u2019s love for klezmer began early on. \u201cI grew up with a broad range of music, classical, blues, labor songs [and] folk: Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Jewish music came around the table Friday nights on the eve of the Sabbath, Saturday afternoons, holidays, and at the synagogue. When the klezmer revival began in the late \u201970s and early \u201980s, my father came home with a record of a band he saw play at Old Time Caf\u00e9, which used to be up in Leucadia [in North County]. It was one of the premier folk world music clubs in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
Working on his book \u201cWandering Feast: a Journey through the Jewish Culture of Eastern Europe,\u201d which is an autobiographical account of the year he spent in the former Eastern Bloc, solidified his appreciation and knowledge of klezmer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThrough my book, I was meeting people, particularly Holocaust survivors,\u201d he said. \u201cIt took on a whole different texture as I got more into it, and I saw that I could communicate with people, not just Jews, through music. I got immersed in history and culture.\u201d<\/p>\n
What Strom said he loves most about music is its ability to connect with others in a way that language cannot. \u201cMusic is an international language of itself,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m lucky that I know music. I think my artwork would be so much different if I didn\u2019t have my music as a close ally and friend.\u201d<\/p>\n
For all his success, Strom is most proud of having raised his daughter, Tallulah, with his wife Elizabeth Schwartz, who is a vocalist for Hot Pstromi. \u201cTallulah is an extension of who I am, who my wife is,\u201d Strom said. \u201cShe will become her own person but there\u2019ll always be a part of me in her, and that\u2019s an ongoing creation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Strom\u2019s latest project is a dance musical, \u201cChagall,\u201d with renowned choreographer John Malashock, which will have its second series of workshop performances at the La Jolla Playhouse June 6 \u2013 9 in the Playhouse\u2019s Theodore and Adele Shank Theatre.<\/p>\n
Strom\u2019s unabashed curiosity and sense of wonderment is why he is able to achieve so much. \u201cI\u2019m always thinking of something new to challenge myself,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve never written opera. I\u2019m going to tell you this: I will before I leave this earth one day. Why not? Let me try. If nothing else, so I failed. If you don\u2019t try then you\u2019ve already failed because there\u2019s zero on the page.\u201d<\/p>\n
Strom becomes introspective when he reflects on his work and many achievements. \u201cI believe it\u2019s my duty as a human and as a Jew to, through my art, enlighten a few other people,\u201d he said. \u201cLeave the world a better place than I came into it: \u2018tikkun olam,\u2019 which means to repair the world. It is the duty of every human, and as a Jew, to make just a little bit better, this world, my neighborhood, my home, my city.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I can just do that even a little bit, then I\u2019ve achieved something.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Monica Medina is director of diversity, engagement and grants at KPBS, and oversees their Local Hero program. This story on Yale Strom first appeared on kpbs.org May 1.<\/i><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hillcrest resident Yale Strom named KPBS-Union Bank Local Hero By Monica Medina | KPBS Listen to klezmer music and it will harken you back to another time. Rich with tradition, the haunting melodies are a testament to the Jewish people and all they\u2019ve endured throughout the course of history.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":246163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Tikkun olam: repairing the world","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11547,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-features","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}