Together with mica and Austria’s music universities, a specialist panel has picked five up-and-coming acts, ensembles or musicians from five genres – classical, jazz, world music, new music and pop/electronic – for NASOM (New Austrian Sound of Music) 2023/2024.
The ACF DC proudly presents the world music NASOM artist and Yiddish singer ISABEL FREY with her program REVOLUTIONARY YIDDISHLAND.
Frey has defied her Viennese-Jewish bourgeois upbringing by embracing the repertoire of Yiddish revolutionary and resistance songs. Songs of class struggle and antifascism, even those from 100 years ago, continue to be relevant to contemporary politics. In this program, Frey will present a number of old and new revolutionary Yiddish songs as well as songs that challenge ideas about contemporary Jewish identity. She will also present her own contemporary settings of Yiddish womens' poetry, expanding the classical definition of what makes a song “revolutionary,” and speak about the continuity of Yiddish culture through the contemporary transnational revitalization movement.
The event is followed by a wine reception.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Isabel Frey is a Yiddish singer and a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. As a performer, she specializes in Yiddish revolutionary songs and continuing the tradition of Jewish social justice activism both on stages and at political protests. She regularly performs Yiddish music either as a soloist, in the duo Soveles or with the Isabel Frey Trio. She has performed at various international festivals and venues, such as the KlezMORE Festival Bratislava, the Singera Festival in Warsaw or the Willy Brandt Center in Jerusalem. In September 2020 she released her debut album "Millenial Bundist" with Yiddish revolutionary and resistance songs, and in November 2022 her debut album with the Yiddish feminist song duo Soveles. Isabel Frey is currently conducting research at Harvard University.
ABOUT NASOM
Together with mica and Austria’s music universities, a specialist panel has picked five up-and-coming acts, ensembles or musicians from five genres – classical, jazz, world music, new music and pop/electronic – for the latest round of NASOM (2023/2024). Isabel Frey was selected as a representative of world music.
“The acts nominated in the various genres, with a clear focus on contemporary music, are the perfect representation of Austria’s modern and culturally diverse music scene,” says Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg.
Over the next two years, the young musicians can look forward to increased support from Austria’s Cultural Fora, Embassies and General Consulates, ranging from being recommended to festival and concert promoters or through having concerts organised on their behalf. The programme thus provides vital initial help for the young talent on their journey to international fame.
NASOM was set up by the Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs 20 years ago and has grown into a successful Austrian music brand. Despite cancellations due to COVID-19, this success was demonstrated in 2021 with 330 concerts involving NASOM artists in nearly 60 countries.
Image © Michèle Pauty