A Funkl Gleybik

A funkl gleybik was commissioned by Koleinu, Boston’s Jewish Community Chorus, and was composed in Lincolnshire, IL and completed in January 2022. The piece was written to celebrate Koleinu’s 20th anniversary, and was composed especially for Koleinu’s voices and Ezekiel’s Wheels klezmer band.
I collected the poems from three of my favorite Yiddish poets – Rosa Nevadovska, Anna Margolin and Malka Heifetz Tussman. The poems all feature themes of nature, awe and wonder, radiance, and a sense of timelessness. The three movements form a large-scale musical and textual narrative that opens with a radiant dazzle and a celebratory fanfare in Rosa Nevadovska’s Ikh hob gezen (I have seen), continues through a rich and solemn chant with Anna Margolin’s Es redn haynt ale shtume zakhn (All mute things speak today), and after a playful instrumental interlude, that playfulness, along with a sense of wonder, closes the piece with Malka Heifetz Tussman’s Haynt iz eybik (Today is forever). The entire piece is laced with shared musical motives, and the songs pour one into another with seamless instrumental interludes.
The piece is written for the community chorus level with six instruments, but can be done with piano alone, or any combination of instruments. Please contact composer for arrangements for specific instrumentation.