Israeli musicologist and pianist Assaf Shelleg to lecture at Washington University, Sept. 2

Aug. 25, 2009 -- "Embattled Israeliness, Embedded Jewishness: Jewish Influences on Israeli Music" is the focus of a lecture by visiting Israeli scholar Assaf Shelleg at 8 p.m., Sept. 2, in the Whitaker Hall Auditorium at Washington University.

Shelleg, an Israeli musicologist and pianist, will discuss moments in Israeli history in which Jewish music penetrated the newly invented Israeli nationalist and art music.

Assaf Shelleg

Based at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Shelleg is teaching at Washington University this year as the Efroymson Visiting Israeli Scholar. His lecture touches on themes he'll also explore this fall in a course on "Musica Ebraica: Jewish Identities in Western Music from 1600 to the 21st Century."

The course examines Western music from the 17th century to the 21st century through the prism of musical works that were written by Jews and for Jews and of musical compositions reflecting their composers' identifying themselves as Jews. Analysis of this music blurs the often perceived antagonism between the "Israeli" and the "Jewish."

Free and open to the public, the lecture is sponsored by the Jewish, Islamic and Near Eastern Studies program in Arts & Sciences. For more information, contact Stephen Scordias at 314-935-8567 or jines@wustl.edu.