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Ger Mandolin Orchestra Tours Poland

Sep 13 2011

International mandolin super-group revives the name and repertoire of a 1930’s Polish Jewish mandolin orchestra. And this September, they took the music back to its source. Full story and notes from the tour by one of the Ger mandolinists.

By Tim Connell

This is like some surreal mandolin-geek’s dream: I’m onstage in a beautiful Warsaw synagogue with ten of the greatest mandolin players in the world, all of us wearing yarmulkes, swaying back and forth in ¾ time, playing mandolins and singing the chorus of a well-known Polish folksong, as an audience of 500-plus stands, arms linked and swaying, singing along. I look across the stage at our musical director, Mike Marshall, strumming his Gibson Lloyd Loar and singing with a big grin on his face, his yarmulke practically falling off his head, and I just start laughing. We are the modern incarnation of the 1930’s-era Ger Mandolin Orchestra, and we are playing the final encore of our last show at the Festiwal Singera in Warsaw, Poland. We’ve just spent an amazing week immersed in Polish culture, the mandolin, and the wonderfully eclectic music of pre-war Yiddish orchestras. What follows here is a report on who we are and how we got here, along with some notes from the road.
Click here to view full article on Mandolin Moments Magazine

The Story of Ger Mandolin Orchestra and their Journey to Poland

Ger Mandolin Orchestra’s Performance at Warsaw’s Singer Festival, Sept. 4th, 2011

Continue on to JMF Ger Mandolin page…
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