Efim Alexandrov

Efim Alexandrov (born Efimian Ziсerman; 13 May 1960, Pidvolochysk Raion, Ternopil Oblast, Ukrainian SSR) — Russian artist of "spoken word” genre (stand-up comedian) and well known performer of Jewish music paying special attention to Yiddish folk songs as a part of the program of saving the culture of Yiddish which is considered an endangered language in Eastern Europe and Russia. He is meritorious (2007).

Parents

Lubov Efimovna and Boris Mikhailovich Ziсerman were born in the township of Bershad in Vinnytsia Oblast; they were Bershad Ghetto prisoners. After the liberation of Bershad in 1944 his father was called up for military service in Soviet Army; he met the end of war in Western Ukraine; after military discharge he graduated from the Lviv University and worked as letters department manager in the neighbourhood papers of Pidvolochysk Raion, later – Volochysk of Khmelnytskyi Oblast. Having graduated from secondary medical school, his mother worked for 40 years as a nurse in infectious disease ward in Pidvolochysk regional hospital.

Early life

While attending secondary school, Efim Ziсerman graduated from music school specializing in clarinet. He was an active participant in amateur talent groups in Volochysk, whereto his family moved in 1968. Having finished 9 classes in Volochysk secondary school (1976), he goes to the state theatre school in Dnipropetrovsk. Being a student in the theatre school he takes part in a variety of Dnipropetrovsk entertainment television programs. He also becomes a member of a Literary institution in a Writers' Union of Ukraine in Dnipropetrovsk. His poetry as well as his review articles are published in different newspapers and magazines in Ukraine. Having graduated from the theatre school, before military service, he works in Ternopol puppet theatre. In 1982 he goes to the faculty of musical theatre in the Lunacharsky Russian Academy of Theatre Arts, a course of honored art worker of RSFSR, professor Mikhail Borisovich Mordvinov, a vocal class of a people's artist of USSR, Alexey Tikhonovich Sergeev.

Being a student, he actively cooperates with Moscow composers within the framework of the Bureau of propaganda of the Composers union of USSR. After the 3 course he is invited to be a soloist in the Jewish Chamber Musical Theatre, where he debuted in the opening night of the theatre, "Khelem wise men”. Later he was invited to the “Rosconcert”, in the Theatre of Musical Parodies, under the direction of Vladimir Vinokur, where he acts not only as an artist, but also as a producer of performances and programs of the theatre. The most known performances of Vinokur nad Alexandrov are "Decrees of fate" (interview with a former Russian, who found himself in an Eastern country where he had to pretend to be a eunuch) and a satirical parody to a puppet show, “No One Here Gets Out Alive", caricaturing disadvantages of Soviet medicine.

Creative activity

In 1993 Efim Alexandrov published his first musical album "A gic in parovoz” (an idiomatic expression in Yiddish: hardly surprising), with Jewish folk songs and songs composed by Ilya Lubinsky and poems of Mikhail Tanich. In the next year, based on the materials of the musical album a similarly named musical concert film made in a Kiev television studio is issued.

Efim Alexandrov is a laureate of a prize of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, "The Man of the Year 5764". At "The Golden Nine" annual ceremony, Efim Alexandrov was awarded by Israel television channel Israel Plus the special prize of "The Golden Nine" for his contribution to the world Jewish culture, with winners being determined by the votes of hundreds of thousands of Russophone Israelis. For the last years he has been working within the framework of The Songs of the Jewish Shtetle project.