Musician Anna Lowenstein has just released her debut album, Through the Walls.
Klezmer music began as the instrumental, traditional ritual music of Eastern European Jews that was, and still is, often played at life cycle rituals such as weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, festivals, and more.
Anna Lowenstein is one of the UK’s leading klezmer fiddle players, and recently performed her debut album Through the Walls at Manchester Jewish Museum. But klezmer wasn’t always her plan: “My dad was a keen amateur chamber musician who played the violin and viola. From aged four I was adamant I wanted to play the violin, and I then grew up playing classical music.
“When I was 18 and applying for universities to study music, I missed my offer and ended up having to take a gap year which turned out to be the best thing that could’ve happened. I got a call from Flora Curzon – the other violin player on the album – who asked if I wanted to play some gigs. This was the first time I’d played anything other than classical music and even though I had no idea what was going on, I felt a very strong sense of klezmer being more my voice and my world.”
Despite the fact Anna had never played it, klezmer music did play a part in her upbringing: “I grew up literally next door to a Hasidic shtiebel in one of the biggest Jewish communities in Europe in Stoke Newington, Stamford Hill. Klezmer always felt very familiar to me as I’d listen to my dad’s CDs and the close proximity to the shtiebel meant that I subconsciously listened and learnt a lot. “It’s quite a chaotic style of music but there’s a beauty and intention to that chaos which I love and now understand. When I listened to it growing up, it often felt like it was coming through the walls!”
It was this exposure to the music that inspired Anna’s debut album title, Through the Walls, which has been eight years in the making. Alongside music, the album also incorporates interviews and recordings from Stamford Hill to create an intimate sonic portrait of community, memory, and place.
“One of the tracks includes a field recording from my garden of the neighbours I grew up listening to where I managed to catch a beautiful melody and create a piece off the back of it,” explains Anna. “There’s also an interview with a shopkeeper from a street I used to live on that was full of Hasidic owned businesses. We became quite friendly during my time living there and him and his wife told me about the history of the street and how it had changed over the years.
“The album is very much me, my process, and my voice but what I’m hoping to do with these additions is to paint a portrait of community and not judging a book by its cover. Everything is so polarised at the moment and it’s only getting more extreme, I hope the album shows the diversity, spectrum, and nuance that can exist within a community.”
Anna isn’t the only musician that features on Through the Walls, she wrote and arranged it for a string quartet that consists of herself, Flora Curzon on violin, Meg Hamilton on viola, and Francesca Ter-Berg on cello: “I didn’t set out to write a string quartet, it just kind of happened! All the players have a very unique skillset in that they know and understand klezmer music very deeply.”
Despite klezmer music’s traditional roots, Anna hopes the album will provide a fresh and exciting take on the genre: “I’m not trying to change tradition necessarily, but the very nature of music is that it’s constantly changing and people add to it. All I hope is that listeners like and are interested in the music and think it’s beautiful!
“One of the things I’m hoping to do alongside this release is an educational component. I was very privileged to have access to classical music education but there are some ways in which it’s taught that doesn’t provide you with a very broad range of skills. There’s a real divide between classical and traditional music even though non-western traditional makes up most of music! I’d love to run some workshops to break down the divide between the two.”
As is apparent on Through the Walls, Anna isn’t just preserving a tradition, she’s reshaping it and inviting others in. In doing so, she reminds us that music, like community, is at its most powerful when it’s shared to create connections that words alone often cannot.
You can buy a copy of Through the Walls from Annalowenstein.bandcamp.com/album/through-the-walls
