The UJA Committee for Yididsh and the California Institute for Yiddish Language & Culture Invite You to a Virtual Talk in English
Beyond the Dybbuk... Henech Kon and the Infinite Prowess of Yiddish Music
DR. DIANA MATUT
Sunday, November 30, 2025
2:00pm ET / 11:00am PT, Free on Zoom
Please CLICK HERE to register for this program.
Henech Kon is best known today as the composer of the film score for The Dybbuk and songs such as “Shpil zhe mir a lidele in Yidish.” He was, however, also a brilliant pianist and musicologist, and wrote arrangements for dozens of Yiddish songs and other scores, among them Freylekhe kaptsonim (‘Jolly Paupers’, 1937). Born in Poland and educated in Berlin, he moved to Warsaw where he worked with the great writers of his time, and wrote music for their plays and kleynkunst performances. Melech Ravitch called him “the Jewish musician par excellence.”
After fleeing Europe in 1940, Kon settled in New York, where his life was marked by an unsuccessful, constant struggle for work and recognition. By the time of his death in 1972, Kon had already become virtually forgotten, even in Yiddish musical circles.
This lecture will honor his tremendous legacy and present the project of bringing his pre-war Yiddish opera "Bas Sheve" back on stage.
This program will be in English.
Dr. Diana Matut teaches Jewish Studies, Yiddish and Jewish Music at the University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany, and the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. Diana was the Joseph Kremen Memorial Fellow in East European Jewish Arts, Music, and Theatre at YIVO (NY, USA) and Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Center for Hebrew and Jewish Studies in 2011-12, and 2019-20. Diana convened the Oxford Seminar in Advanced Jewish Studies in 2020-2021, and led a research group focusing on “Jewish Musical Cultures in Europe, 1500-1750”. In 2021, she was awarded the Mare-Balticum-Fellowship of the University of Rostock, Germany.
Diana has taught at universities in Canada, Czech Republic, Israel, Italy, UK, USA, and for several Jewish cultural festivals, and centers such as Yiddish Summer Weimar, Klezkanada, Klezfest London, and Maison de la Culture Yiddish Paris. Her cooperation with Yiddish Summer Weimar resulted in various musical projects.
In 2019 Diana, together with American composer/arranger Josh Horowitz, led the Henech Kon project, which brought the only surviving pre-war Yiddish opera Bas Sheve, from Europe back on stage.
