Michael Riskin. “My Great-Grandfather’s Songs”. Musical Solo Performance

This performance was created on the basis of unique historical and musical materials and today has no similar analogs on either the theatrical or musical stages of the world. The performance awakens in listeners their national memory, feelings of unity with their people, and affinity with their roots.

Michael Riskin received from his great-grandfather, who served as an accountant at the Ljubavitcher Rabbi’s court at the beginning of the 20th century, a valuable inheritance - a notebook with the handwritten texts of songs in Yiddish. Michael's father, raised by his grandfather, Michael’s great-grandfather, absorbed these songs in early childhood and taught them back to Michael.

The songs are very diverse and describe many aspects of the life of the legendary Jewish town of Lubavitch in the Pale of Settlement from the 2nd half of the 19th century to collectivization (30-s of the last century).