University Memorial Center
Boulder, CO 80309
As part of the American Association of Italian Studies conference, the Program in Jewish Studies, the Department of French and Italian, and the CU Art Museum are proud to be hosting a Weekend of 20th century Italian Jewish Culture, featuring two concerts with Jewlia Eisenberg and Charming Hostess.
The Ginzburg Geography: A Sonic Exploration of Italian Antifascism
Concert with Jewlia Eisenberg and Charming Hostess
Saturday, March 28 @ 8:30PM - 10:00PM
Glenn Miller Ballroom (Middle Section)
Monday, March 30 @ 7:00PM - 9:00PM
University of Colorado Old Main Chapel
Free and open to the public
Join us for one of two concerts with Jewlia Eisenberg and Charming Hostess, exploring Italian antifascism. The show will also include spoken word in Italian and English by students in the Department of Italian and Program in Jewish Studies, as well as feature a bilingual Italian-English zine about Ginzburg by Jewish Studies major and Italian minor Shikari Browne.
The Ginzburg Geography is drawn from the life and work of Natalia and Leone Ginzburg, Italian Jews famous for anti-fascist resistance and intellectual brilliance. It is a sonic map focusing on where they lived together: Turin, Pizzoli, and Rome. Charming Hostess’ map refers to specific physical locations, but also resonates with the actions and relationships associated with those places, allowing a sense-memory of places in time. Much of the information in our map comes from the Ginzburgs’ writing on place.
The map of The Ginzburg Geography is new and traditional music drawing from the Italian regions of Piemonte, Abruzzo and Rome; from Italian Jewish liturgy, the oldest and most remote in Europe; and from Italian anti-fascist songs–work chants and resistance anthems. This iteration of The Ginzburg Geography is in concert form. It will soon be presented as an immersive performance that maps not only the journeys of the Ginzburgs, but also those of visitor participants, creating a sonic forest of maps to walk among, listen to, and add to.
Jewlia Eisenberg is a composer, extended-technique vocalist, lay cantor, and the founder of Charming Hostess. She is interested in the particular emotional, erotic and spiritual terrains that the voice can traverse. Her work explores the intersection of text and the sounding body, pushing for translation strategies between verbal and non-verbal languages. Collaborators include anarcholits Fantom Slobode, choreographer Jo Kreiter and filmmaker Lynn Sachs. Commissioned work includes Harmonices Mundi, an opera about Kepler’s mother, and Red Rosa, a song cycle based on the letters of Rosa Luxemburg. She has been an Artist-in-Residence at MIT and University of Denver; she has studied with sozanda Muna Nissimova, Fred Frith and Daniel Boyarin. Hobbies include class war, knitting, and smashing SUV windshields. Brooklyn born and bred, she now calls San Francisco home.
