Vocal talent......

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Very interesting.

He looks quite a bit like my husband did when he was in his early 20s. husband was a singer but didn't specialize in "noises".
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
How unusual and other-worldly. I do not know if I want to go there. I find myself wishing he would use that g-d given talent and just sing.

COPA
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Not at all other-worldly. Stu's mother's family came over from the Ukraine. If this gentleman's family lived in one of the small villages near the village my mother in law's family came from, if you go back far enough, Stu and this gentleman probably share some genetic material.

The coloring and facial features are not uncommon in that area. In fact, my nephew, who visited the Ukraine with his wife last year, commented on how many of the men in the smaller villages looked like Stu.

What was "exotic" here, was actually quite common in the "old country". For what singing this gentleman did, he's got a gorgeous high tenor and falsetto. I'd like to hear him singing some light opera or traditional music, and keep the noises.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
My mother in law came over as a child fleeing the pogroms, as did my paternal grandparents.

In the old country, the "others" were killing Jews before the Germans invaded.

My maternal grandfather was a rabbi who was also trained as a cantor (person who chants the services)

He did chirp.
 

New Leaf

Well-Known Member
I am enjoying your discussion and the information, GN and Copa.

The vocalist has an amazing range. I closed my eyes while listening and thought "Wow this guy is really in tune with the sounds of the earth." The piece seemed other worldly to me also Copa, while fascinating me at the same time. I find it interesting GN, that this is not unusual from this area of the globe.

I thought also about what it must have taken to develop this "talent". How long has he been perfecting and building his repertoire of sounds? What hurdles did he overcome, to be up in front of a large audience? It is interesting in some of the other Youtube videos, to see the audiences reaction. At first there is laughter and giggling, shock and dismay, then as the piece grows, a kind of hush and wonderment.

As I write this, I am listening to Bach- Mass in B minor.
How amazing and brilliant for composers of that time to put together all of the components for their masterpieces. They didn't have computers and synthesizers, and imagined instruments, vocals and notes in their minds, then transcribed on to paper, to purvey the emotion and language of music.

How beautiful and magnificent the world is, with all of the differences in people, culture and understanding.

I am in a floaty, thankful, state of awe.

Time to snap out of it and clean house!

Thank you for your comments, very intriguing indeed.

leafy
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
My maternal grandparents (and my mother, aunt and uncle) were born in the order listed, went to Newfoundland Canada, from there back to England, to South Africa for a several years.

My grandparents came to the US in the mid 40s, but weren't considered asylum seekers.
"The kids" came over in the mid 50s, with their parents as sponsors. My mother was introduced to my father, they dated and wound up getting married a couple of years before I was born. My mother got her citizenship here when I was 3 years old and my sister was on her way. I guess you can call me an "anchor baby", though I don't think that played in role in my conception :)

There's very few of us left now that the generation of the Sho'ah has died off. Some family made it to Israel and fought in the founding wars. Many from Lithuania who got out and to Europe and the US, went back to Lithuania and Russia to try to find and get relatives out of Europe and bring them to US and England. They were rounded up and died like flies, including several sets of twins who were experimented on.

Now there are my mother, my sister, my niece and nephew, a few cousins, and a few relatives by marriage who once divorce or death ended their marriages, went back to their birth families as is normal in Judiasm.
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
My maternal grandparents (and my mother, aunt and uncle) were born in the order listed, went to Newfoundland Canada
My grandparents on both sides entered Canada (where I do not remember) and worked their way across Canada, down to Minnesota (my Mom was born in Minneapolis) and across to the West. My grandmother's siblings either stayed in Canada, (Edmonton, Alberta) or in Michigan and Illinois.

You know there was no talk I can remember about what happened to my relatives who were left. Whether the adults spoke among themselves I do not know. I do not think anybody went back to help them. Maybe some day I will be able to go back. I know the general area but not exactly.

At this point M cannot leave this country. I would not want to travel alone anymore. Especially a trip like that. Although my father's family was from Scotland, the affective ties, the identity and the belonging are all connected to my mother's heritage, for me.

COPA
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
A lot of our people lost their religion during the Holocaust. If you go back, be VERY careful. They hate Jews over there. Not only that, they are loaded with refugees that they do NOT want and in response some of the refugees are resorting to violence, much of directed at Muslims, but enough left over for Jews.

I can still remember being about 4 and asking my favorite aunt about the numbers on her arm.

She looked at my mother, asking permission, and when my mother nodded agreement, Aunt Sylvia sat me down, and told me the family history, no holds barred
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
They hate Jews over there.
Of course I know that, from 100 plus years ago. By the time I was born, my grandmother had been here already 40 years maybe. The pogroms and Cossacks were real to her like it was yesterday. They became real to me, too, the hatred for us.

The way we are going here, you have to wonder if we are not going in the same direction. M is undocumented. While it may seem that a lot of the political discourse is hyperbole, I am not so sure. Like you said, people may look for "an other," and eventually they may get to us. I do not think this is intrinsic in human beings or cultures, but sometimes it seems so.

I doubt if anybody is left of my people but I think about this a lot. Home for hundreds of years. And then gone. Everybody gone.

COPA

I had a lot of yearning for Home in my life. A lot of loss. Less so now because I am happy and secure, more or less.
 

Estherfromjerusalem

Well-Known Member
What a fascinating thread! It's so interesting to hear about your families, Copa and Going North.

I had already seen that guy performing, someone put it on Facebook and I saw it there. I was mesmerized. It is so beautiful, the bird and animal sounds are just unreal because they are so real -- ha ha, if you see what I mean -- and he has an amazing singing voice. What a talented young man.

Love, Esther
 

New Leaf

Well-Known Member
It is so beautiful, the bird and animal sounds are just unreal because they are so real -- ha ha, if you see what I mean -- and he has an amazing singing voice. What a talented young man.
I agree that it is beautiful, Esther, a bit bizarre to think that a human could produce such real life and also otherworldly sounds, but nevertheless, beautiful.

Love, Leafy
 

svengandhi

Well-Known Member
What an interesting artist he is.

As for the rest of the discussion, I am right in there with you. All 4 of my grandparents came here from what is now Belarus and Ukraine before World War 1. My paternal grandma never spoke a word of Russian after she came here; when I studied it in college, she had a fit so bad that I dropped the class. She then told me about being 7 years old and hiding under a bed as Russians killed everyone in the house she was in - it was a friend's house and she wasn't supposed to be there so nobody looked for her. My maternal grandfather and a brother were smuggled out in the bottom of a goat cart at 12 and 13 so they wouldn't be drafted into the Czar's army.

My husband is Irish and German. He had more family members killed in the Holocaust than I did because his people were Catholics. However, his grandfather was a ship captain (think Titanic, lol) and when his grandma was 8 months pregnant, he loaded her onto his boat and brought her to the US. My mother-in-law was probably an original anchor baby since she was born in 1924. After his grandma gave birth to an Irish twin, H's maternal great=grandpa came on HIS boat and took his daughter and the grands back to Germany because the "Irish bum" kept getting his little girl pg. THere they lived till 1933. When Hitler came to power, back came H's grandpa on the boat and he brought his wife and kids back to the US - with 2 citizen kids, there was no problem getting in. As an aside, there were 2 more kids born within one year of the family coming back to the states and they were also Irish twins.

I have heard that I still have family in Belarus but I would never go there.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Irish twins=babies born to the same mother within a year of each other. Perjorative.

My nephew went back to the old country and found many old maternal family graves in Lithuania.

My family was really uncomfortable with me going to Germany to live with my husband when the Army transferred him there.

I was there when the borders were first opened (I lived so close to the border that I could see it from our balcony.) and when the Wall finally came down.

I traveled all over, but was unable to visit any of the Eastern Bloc nations that my family came from, other than a cat show in Czechoslovakia shortly after the border opened, which was a novel in and of itself. I went with a friend as husband couldn't go.

I picked up German quite easily as I grew up with Yiddish spoken in the house, though have forgotten most of it, but can still understand it. Unfortunately, I also came home with a German accent when I spoke Yiddish, which was much worse than the Yiddish accent I had when I spoke German.
 

Estherfromjerusalem

Well-Known Member
You were lucky to have had and known grandparents. My grandparents were all murdered by the Nazis and I was born to a world without any grandparents. So many of my family members were murdered. I always knew that I would have very many children, and I have eight, and I have over 30 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. And that is my revenge on Hitler!

I did go to Germany once. The municipality of Hamburg published my grandmother's letters -- she was there until the end of 1942 when she was deported, but by a miracle her letters to her two children were preserved. We three sisters went because they put on a sort of "book launch" in her memory. I was prepared to feel awful to be there, but to my great surprise I loved the city of Hamburg, and to my even greater surprise I felt really at home there. It was so strange.

My father got to England because some cousins there guaranteed for him that he would not be a burden on the British economy (!). My mother got a permit to enter England as a domestic servant. They were lucky.

Nuff said.

Love, Esther
 
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