Academics from The University of Manchester are bringing klezmer, a type of Jewish folk music, into the local community as part of a project to create intercultural encounters and improve intercultural awareness through music.

Richard Fay and Daniel Mawson received a Humanities Strategic Civic Engagement Fund (HSCEF) award in 2023 for their project on intercultural musicking in the community. They have developed a network of connections to support their mission to bring people from different cultural backgrounds together through musical activities. The funding scheme, which is the Faculty of Humanities’ flagship social responsibility fund, offers support to projects that are inspired by the University’s Greater Manchester location, and which seek to improve communities across the city-region.

Richard and Daniel recognised that their pioneering undergraduate module in klezmer ensemble performance could be taken out into local community groups to enrich and diversify the student experience while also contributing to local relationships. They now collaborate regularly with the Manchester Jewish Museum, the Hallé Orchestra, local Jewish communities, and Jewish care homes thus providing students with a platform to perform while giving them meaningful encounters beyond the normal remits of student life.

Richard described “bilateral ‘making a difference’” as one of the key impacts of the project, saying: “I think the intercultural musicking opens a safe space, which, because it has musical respect at its heart, makes conversations possible that probably wouldn’t have occurred otherwise. It enables you to interact with individuals as individuals rather than responding to them as part of an essentialised group of people. It’s almost like magic.”

• To find out more about this project, visit the Klezmer in the Manchester Community website.

photo credit: The Halle Klezmer Evening, November 2023. Photo credit: Bill Lam