Judith Berkson: Oylam

"More by accident than by design, Judith Berkson has followed a circuitous and genre-hopping musical path. Her introduction to the art form was through her father, a cantor in a conservative synagogue in Chicago who taught her Jewish sacred music. As a high school student, she got interested in opera and art song, and she earned a degree in voice from the New England Conservatory, in Boston, where she also studied composition and piano. ... [S]he developed a graceful, laid-back style as a jazz singer and pianist that is evident on 'Oylam,' her quirky 2010 CD (ECM), on which her interests collide: cabaret standards are juxtaposed with a Yiddish song, one of her own cantorial pieces and a jazzy take on a song from Schubert’s 'Winterreise'" (Allan Kozinn, "Mash-up of Schubert and Synagogue Tradition," New York Times, 11/1/12).

View catalog record here!