Jane Enkin’s songs in Yiddish range from treasured favourities to obscure gems. Jane writes blues, folk, jazz and inspirational music. She tells world folktales and hasidic stories. As storyteller, singer, song-leader and teacher, Jane energizes groups and brings out their creativity.
Jane Enkin is a singer, songwriter, and storyteller. Her training includes studies in traditional and contemporary liturgical music. In New York, she attended classes and workshops with Adrienne Cooper Z”L and Zalman Mlotek, giants of the Yiddish music scene.
A musical highlight of Jane’s first years in Winnipeg was the Mameloshen Festival. Richard Yaffe and Jane performed solos and duets in Yiddish, ranging from jazz to theatre to traditional folk material, arranged and accompanied in 2009 by Ron Paley and in 2010 by Michelle Gregoire.
Jane performed her original blues and jazz songs with arrangements by Gary Brenner on piano and by Jeremy Rusu on keyboard, guitar and fretless bass, and Eli Herscovitch Z’L on saxophone and blues harmonica.
Here is Jane’s page on reverbnation: www.reverbnation.com/janeenkin
Jane has performed at Winnipeg venues including the Millenium Library Skywalk Concert Series, the Gwen Secter Centre, the Simkin Centre and the Rady Centre. For the seniors at the Simkin Centre, Jane led a Yiddish song circle for many years, drawing forth melody and memory. She contributed songs for many years to Holocaust Memorial programs.
Learning tender, bitterweet songs written during the war years to sing at Holocaust memorials, Jane became enthralled with tangos in Yiddish. She was delighted to discover the strong presence of tango rhythms in New York Yiddish musical theatre of the 20’s and 30’s, and in the repertoires of Jewish entertainers for years after the war. Yiddish tango is now a significant aspect of Jane’s repertoire.
In 2018, the ensemble Tango Yona, with Jane on vocals, released their CD Yiddish to the Heart: tangoyona.com
Jane offers workshops in storytelling, Yiddish song, and many aspects of Jewish spirituality. She writes poetry, often based on biblical texts and themes. She offers workshops on creative midrash, individual approaches to Jewish texts. At synagogues, Jane tells stories and leads songs of prayer and wordless melodies as part of study sessions and services. For several years, she hosted the Rosh Chodesh Program at Shaarey Zedek Synagogue.
Leading large ensembles for Nachmanifest and Limmud was a thrilling new experience for Jane, creating contexts for musicians to collaborate, improvise and arrange together new approaches to traditional melodies and her own compositions. The Nachmanifest celebration featured Jane with the band Flowing Source performing traditional Breslov Hasidic melodies. At the Limmud Festival, Jane led a Jewish World Music band featuring Jewish songs from Africa, the Middle East and Europe.