Alicia Svigals, Klezmer Violinist

classicfilmobsessions.blogspot.com:

“Their performance was masterful, as the duo cleverly wove scored music with improvisation. The blending of the Eastern European Yiddish folklore-style melodies...with well-known synagogue cantorial pieces and Viennese classical excerpts sounded as authentic as Dupont could have ever imagined. The playing was confident, and each musician had the opportunity to shine. “

KQEK.com:

“The score’s incredible strength lies in the strong themes and exemplary performances, especially Svigals, whose impassioned solos...are devastating in their beauty.”

Dr. Mark Slobin, Professor Emeritus of Music, Wesleyan University

To speak to today’s audiences, what The Ancient Law needed was an intelligent, well-executed film score to carry viewers across the multiple social settings and characterizations, rife with internal conflict. An ideal team has done just that. Alicia Svigals, whose work on another silent film, The Yellow Ticket, was widely praised on her multi-city tours, combined with Donald Sosin, a titan of early-cinema scoring, to produce an unusually supple, accurate, thoughtful, and moving score. I saw it live at Lincoln Center and then on video, which only intensified my admiration for the soundtracks’ craft, accuracy, and emotional charge. To date, the Svigals-Sosin duo have performed it live some fifty-five times, to universal acclaim.

New York Music Daily:

Svigals is fresh off an absolutely delightful show late last month, when she teamed up with a frequent collaborator, pianist Donald Sosin for a live score to E.A. Dupont’s 1923 German silent film The Ancient Law at Temple Ansche Chesed on the Upper West. 

Beyond the movie – which is very sweet, and progressive even by the Weimar era’s avant garde standards – what was most impressive was what a fantastic classical violinist Svigals is. Following the film’s narrative, the music begins in a little village somewhere in the Pale (Sosin's starts out on accordion, appropriately), then suddenly shifts to cosmopolitan mid-19th century Vienna. That’s where the plaintive dirges and bristling freylachs suddenly make way for melancholy Schubert ballads, lively Mozart and, for verisimilitude, a few detours into Johann Strauss...

It was there that the split-second change in Svigals’ intonation and attack was most striking. All of a sudden those bracing overtones, and double-stops, and glissandos disappeared in favor of a crystalline, legato approach…and then made a welcome return when the plotline shifted back to the ghetto. Those old Jewish folk tunes have survived for a reason: they’re just plain gorgeous. Beyond the action on-screen, the moments when the duo were obviously jamming out solos over familiar minor-key changes were arguably the evening’s most adrenalizing, entertaining passages. ..

Svigals and Sosin have been touring their live movie score along with a screening shortly after the film was rescued from oblivion, digitized and sequenced to match the original print during what must have been a daunting restoration process. Without giving too much away, the main story concerns a rabbi’s son who runs off to the big city to become an actor. Tensions between father and son, tradition and modernity simmer and bubble, but the movie is basically a comedy: the moment where the rabbi finally picks up the forbidden volume of Shakespeare that the film’s Falstaff character has smuggled in is priceless...

Peter Benoliel, former president, Philadelphia Orchestra and board member at Marlboro Music Festival 

We were mesmerized! The music—the klezmer violin and piano score—magnified the story line and captured our hearts. It was really a wonderful 2+ hour experience.

Gina Glassman, professor, Binghamton University

People have been rushing up to me ever since to say how much they enjoyed themselves....- there's a unanimous, "Wow!" - on account of your masterful musicianship, the beauty of the score and performance, and not least, your incredible stamina.

there's unexpected responses from my colleagues. It seems to have literally blown their mind. Most cried, were profoundly moved by the whole thing. "The best thing I've ever gone to on campus" was said to me several times. The word, "Spectacular" has been dropped into conversation. And when I said you might do a return tour, people are visibly thrilled.

All of this to say, you have created an unusual response -... And then there's my students, who seem to be equally thrilled. ...you embodied a possibility - of pleasure and truth, through music and a film - that clearly made a mark, in an immediate and important way.

So thank you both, for everything, and of course, for the fantastic conversations. I look forward to more,...r. I think I have fallen in love with silent film - and maybe this director - but your music is inextricable from this new "love affair"!

Till later,
and with many, many thanks!

Rabbi Lisa Grushcow, Temple Emanu-El Beth Sholom, Montreal  

What an amazing evening! I was absolutely blown away by the film and the music… What a gift to bring this story back to life for a very appreciative audience. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Yulia Nikitina, York University, Toronto

I wanted to express my deepest gratitude for your incredible performance at Sound & Sense: Jewish Music@York.  Your musical brilliance made the event unforgettable, and your talent truly moved everyone present.

Delarue, New York Music Daily blog

What was most impressive was what a fantastic classical violinist Svigals is...[and] the moments when the duo were obviously jamming out solos over familiar minor-key changes were arguably the evening’s most adrenalizing, entertaining passages.

Audience Feedback

"The cine-concert was amazing -- the astounding film itself, the score that you so carefully and lovingly crafted, and the exquisite way you both performed it. The whole experience was so wonderful that my only regret was that  I hadn't caught a performance sooner. Congratulations!”

“The silent film with live music score was incredible- quite an experience!”