Yiddish: emerge[nce]
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A huge thanks to the Lydian String Quartet for their stunning recording, Professor David Rakowski for his guidance, Dr. James Praznik for his generous A/V engineering, and finally New Music Brandeis for making everything possible behind the scenes. (Web premiere Apr. 29, 2021.)
Score: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JPBxvSwtHsB4irTTR_B3LkK0M6oYIiGN/view | Web Premiere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blTPcWteFew
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I don't think this piece comes anywhere close to finding the answers it seeks, but I hope the journey means a little bit of something.

aroyskumen (2020)

Special thanks to Ekmeles for their wonderful recording, as well as New Music Brandeis for coordinating this workshop (April 10, 2021).
Score: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xOrIHNlpdZ4danNEb38XhFxsmY52BLQP/view
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I am intrigued by my choice of title for an experience
that has a definite start, middle, and end.

I don't know why this piece exists

(or does it?)
it just does.

Time isn't real. (2021)

Max Friedman, composition and trumpet
Recorded August 2020

(un)gefiltered (2020)

Nocturne for the Endless Void, performed beautifully by Yarn/Wire! Their residency and this performance was made possible by New Music Brandeis and Dr. James Praznik.

Nocturne For The Endless Void

Grepsl (2018) –––– Huge thanks to Delara Hashemi (flute), Rena Feller (clarinet), and Susanna Whitney (bassoon) for their amazing performance!
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"Grepsl" is Yiddish for a "little burp."

Grepsl

Astounding performance by Hub New Music (4/1/2022), and special thanks to my masters thesis advisor, Dr. Yu-Hui Chang, my Yiddish professor, Dr. Ellen Kellman, Dr. James Praznik (recording), and New Music Brandeis.

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Somewhere far, somewhere far, lies a meadow in the mountains.

In this meadow, memories gather to embrace one another and come away as something new.
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"the meadow with the butter-flowers" is the fifth and final movement of Butter-lider, a setting of poems by H. Leivick, Yankev Glatshteyn, Kadia Molodovsky, and Rokhl H. Korn, four of my favorite Yiddish writers of the 20th century. However, instead of setting these texts for voice, my music accompanies recordings (graciously archived and provided by the Yiddish book Center) of the poets themselves reciting their writing. This final movement features my own text assembled from translated fragments of each of the four poems.

Through this piece, I hope to facilitate a dialogue, across artistic media, across time and space, between these writers’ unique perspectives, and my own, on what it means to make Yiddish art. I refuse to fall into the elitist and insulting narrative of “elevating” a folk tradition by bringing it into classical music spaces. Rather, I hope to participate in this living culture so that it may reach new audiences and new generations, and to offer another medium, another language, through which to tell Yiddish narratives.

the meadow with the butter-flowers

דײַן מזל זאָל לײַכטן װי די לבֿנה סוף חודש
dayn mazl zol laykhtn vi di levone sof khoydesh
may your luck shine as bright as the new moon

recording session by Evil Manners Brass Quintet
Stanley Friedman and Max Friedman, trumpets
Leander Star, horn
Ken Spain, trombone
Mark Vail, bass trombone
Mark Woodring, audio

as bright as the new moon. (2021)

0:00 – 1. ergets vayt (H. Leivick)
2:15 – 2. tirtl-toybn (Yankev Glatshteyn)
3:30 – 3. nakht (Kadya Molodovsky)
6:35 – 4. a lonke tsvishn berg (Rokhl H. Korn)
8:05 – 5. the meadow with the butter-flowers

An absolutely golden performance of Butter-lider (2022), commissioned and premiered in full by No Exit New Music Ensemble, Dec. 3, 2022, SPACES Gallery, Cleveland, OH. Special thanks to No Exit directors Timothy Beyer and James Praznik; the brilliant musicians of No Exit; and my advisors, Yu-Hui Chang and Ellen Kellman.

Sean Gabriel, flute
Gunnar Owen Hirthe, clarinet
Cara Tweed, violin
Nicholas Diodore, cello
Nicholas Underhill, piano
Luke Rinderknecht, percussion
James Praznik, media and recording

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Butter-lider is a setting of poems by H. Leivick, Yankev Glatshteyn, Kadia Molodovsky, and Rokhl H. Korn, four of my favorite Yiddish writers of the 20th century. However, instead of setting these texts for voice, my music accompanies recordings (graciously archived and provided by the Yiddish book Center) of the poets themselves reciting their writing. The final movement features my own text assembled from translated fragments of each of the four poems.

Through this piece, I hope to facilitate a dialogue, across artistic media, across time and space, between these writers’ unique perspectives, and my own, on what it means to make Yiddish art. I refuse to fall into the elitist and insulting narrative of “elevating” a folk tradition by bringing it into classical music spaces. Rather, I hope to participate in this living culture so that it may reach new audiences and new generations, and to offer another medium, another language, through which to tell Yiddish narratives.

Butter-lider (2022) פּוטער־לידער

Rena Feller, clarinet
Susan Snyder, piano

Premiere March 18 at Rhodes College, Memphis, TN

Nigun (2023)

Fish Mysteries (2021):

1. fish mysteries
2. Hydracnidae
3. Argomandlech
4. MYSTERY FISH
5. Z. Finitus

fish mysteries

Max Friedman is a composer, trumpet player, Yiddishist, translator, and educator based in Memphis, TN. His music and scholarship explore the multitudes of ways Yiddish speakers have and continue to express their identities through music. His composition “Butter-Lider,” for Yiddish poetry recordings and sextet, was commissioned and premiered (Dec. 2022) by Cleveland’s No Exit New Music Ensemble. Other compositions have been performed by Yarn/Wire, Hub New Music, the Lydian String Quartet, Ekmeles, Ensemble Dal Niente, the Brown University Orchestra, and the Boston-based Horizon Ensemble. An advanced Yiddish student and translator, Max was a 2021 Steiner Program Fellow at the Yiddish Book Center, and in 2022 attended the YIVO-Bard Uriel Weinreich Yiddish Summer Program. He has also presented at conferences hosted at Indiana University, Brandeis University, and the University of Toronto, and he is a 2023 Fortunoff/In Geveb Fellow. Max holds degrees from Brown University (AB ‘20) and Brandeis University (MFA ‘22).

Max Friedman

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