Yiddish Princess Band Brings Free Yiddish Rock Concert to Rutgers on March 10

Yiddish and hard rock? Would you ever expect those two terms to appear in the same sentence? How about appearing on stage in the form of a free music concert?

That's what's happening this Tuesday evening at 7:30 pm at the Victoria J. Mastrobuono Theater at 85 George Street in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Yiddish Princess, a Brooklyn-based rock band, has performed around the world, including at the Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow, Poland. The concert this week is being offered in conjunction with a course on Yiddish culture by Jeffrey Shandler, a professor of Jewish studies at Rutgers and a scholar of contemporary Yiddish culture.

As Lois Goldrich wrote in this week's Jewish Standard,

Yiddish Princess “mixes power pop and hard rock with traditional Yiddish music, reflecting the powerful mix of cultures found in Brooklyn and other hipster outposts around the world today,” Dr. Shandler said. The concert, which is open to the public, will be followed by a talk-back with members of the band, which he will moderate, beginning by asking them about their music and their personal journeys as musicians.

The six-member group has been around for several years, Dr. Shandler said, noting that the lead vocalist, Sarah Mina Gordon, is the daughter of the late Adrienne Cooper, “a great singer and teacher… who played an important role in teaching both traditional Yiddish folk song and theater and art songs and encouraged her students to make this music their own."

Her daughter, he said, has done exactly that, although “it’s not the kind of music her mother would make. Her mother was a trained opera singer and had her own approach to singing. Sarah rocks out.”

We' ll be attending the concert. Will you? In the meantime, enjoy this video clip from the Krakow performance.

(A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO IS NOT VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.)