The Asheville Jewish Folk Music Collection Project brought together local Asheville Jewish musicians and singers to select and record an original composition with Jewish and/or Hebrew content and professionally produce a CD to be shared with the community at a concert and CD release event.
Musicians were invited to collaborate with each other on their recordings, and one of the recordings included all of the participating musicians and singers in a “We are the world” style recording that is relevant to our Jewish community’s history and identity.
Performers included the Goldstein Family Band, Billy Jonas, Penny White, Bob Deutsch, Carpathian Spruce, Ed Fidelman, Bandana Klezmer, Ben Phan Natalya Weinstein, James McMahon & Kol Simcha, Jane Roman Pitt, and Seth Kellam & Jana Kellam. These musicians spent two days at Echo Mountain Studios creating a digital master of the recordings used to create a CD with approximately 300 copies.
The recordings serve to document a musical “snapshot in time” made available for future generations to understand the story of Jewish Asheville through music.
The Asheville Jewish Folk Music Project was made possible by the Making Music Happen grant, funded by Marvin J. Pertzik and the Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke Foundation and sponsored by the JCC Association’s Making Music Happen Centennial Grant Initiative. The Making Music Happen grant supports JCCs and their communities as they explore Jewish meaning through music. The grant affirms and celebrates the centrality of music to Jewish life in North America.
