Suddenly Every Song Makes Me Cry: A Year of Israeli Music since October 7th with Dr. Tanya Sermer, adjunct faculty in the YII program
The ever-present sounds in our ears – sirens and booms, aircraft overhead, news broadcasts, the resurgence of classic memorial songs, and the outpouring of new music expressing the hopes and fears of the moment – keep the war in the constant forefront of our lives. Marking the first anniversary of October 7, we will explore what the soundscape can teach us about the Israeli experience of war over the course of the last year: the various information and symbolic meanings embedded in the Israeli soundscape during wartime; what changes in Israeli listening practices tell us about how war affects cultural consumption; and how current musical activity fits into the broader heritage of Israeli war and memorial repertoire.
Dr. Tanya Sermer is faculty at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and also works as instructor at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (Year in Israel program) and as artistic producer of the Jerusalem Oratorio Choir. She received her doctorate in musicology from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and completed post-doctoral fellowships from the Israel Institute and the Lady Davis Fellowship Trust. Her research focuses on music of Israel and the Arab Middle East, as well as Jewish and Islamic music and chant. She investigates the politics of music and sound in the public sphere, including the role of music in nation-building, protest, conflict, gender politics, and the production of space. Tanya plays piano, guitar, and Middle Eastern percussion, and performs as an instrumentalist and cantor throughout Canada, the U.S., and Israel.