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Shura Lipovsky (The Hague, The Netherlands, September 6, 1961) is an international performer of Yiddish/Jewish songs, a storyteller and teacher of Jewish mystical melodies and dance. She studied singing at the Rotterdam conservatory with Margreet Honig and Yiddish language with Mira Rafalowicz, at the Oxford Summer University and at Maison de la Culture Yiddish in Paris. She finished a dance education at the Dutch institute of folklore Landelijk Centrum voor Amateurdans (LCA) in 1987. In 2005\2006 she studied at L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris.

Performances
Shura Lipovsky sang and taught at festivals in Europe, Russia and Canada. As a performer she has given concerts with musicians from Europe and the United States, including pianist Zalmen Mlotek and guitarist/mandolinist Jeff Warschauer with whom she recorded the CD, Moments of Jewish Life. Shura Lipovsky did the opening concert of the Jewish Cultural Center in Kracow in 1994 and the official Memorial Concert of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising with Warschauer and Mlotek. This concert took place in the Warsaw Philharmonia in 1993 that was broadcast live and resulted in the CD Heroes and Poets.

She took part in The Klezmer Extravaganza with Ytzhak Perlman in 1996.

She was the soloist with the ensemble Antequera and recorded the CD Jews and Christians, with interpretations of Sephardic repertoire in medieval style and with Cantiqua's di Santa Maria in 1996.

Invited by the concert-theatre Vredenburg in Utrecht in 1996, Shura Lipovsky produced a special program with Jemenite and Bosnian/Sephardic repertoire and formed a new ensemble for this occasion, Hapilpel. Hapilpel performed in festivals in the Netherlands and in Poland. For a Rumanian/Yiddish program she formed the ensemble Yiddish Veltn and did the opening concert for the International Jewish Music Festival in Amsterdam in 2002. In 2003 she formed Trio Shura Lipovsky, with cimbalom-player Jan Rokyta and violinist Monique Lansdorp. In 2006 Lipovsky produced the CD Tsart with Trio Shura Lipovsky.

An invitation by the Amsterdam Concertgebouw in 2011 inspired Shura Lipovsky to put together a new ensemble, Novaya Shira (New Song), to build a program around Yiddish and Russian culture, bridging the two worlds. The concert took place on the 16th of February 2011. Since then Novaya Shira performs regularly on the national and international stage. Honoring the name New Song, the ensemble brings new poetry and compositions by Shura Lipovsky and arrangements/compositions by pianist Paul Prenen.

Masterclasses/courses/workshops
Shura Lipovsky teaches Master-classes for singers and repertoire classes of Yiddish songs. She developed courses on The Meditative Voice, with Jewish mystical melodies, Nigunim and meditation. She taught at the Oxford Summer University (GB), Summer-University in Vilna, and at Klezfests in St. Petersburg, Canada, London, Weimar, Amsterdam and Paris.

Dance
Since 1990 Shura Lipovsky teaches workshops on Hassidic Dance, improvisation and song, based on Kabbalistic concepts, in the Netherlands, Germany, Switserland and Canada.

Theatre/Storytelling
As a storyteller Shura Lipovsky performs a theatre-program with Hassidic stories and Yiddish songs: Buiten Eden (Outside Eden). This program was put together by Shura Lipovsky and directed by the opera director Cilia Hogerzeil. Lipovsky tells the stories in Dutch, or German, Yiddish or English, and performed this program around the world, in British Limud in 1996 accompanied by the accordionist Bart Lelievelt, in 2012 with pianist Tamir Chasson in Portugal and Sweden.

Peacework
By means of singing, dancing and storytelling, Shura Lipovsky is active in inter-religious dialogue and a member of the committee of recommendation for Musicians without Borders (MwB), located in the Netherlands. MwB does peace-work through music and dance in countries experiencing ethnic conflicts and war. In 2003 she worked with the inter-religious choir Pontanima in Sarajevo, and in 2004 she performed with the intercultural Mostar Sinfonietta, with a Jewish/Bosnian song-program in collaboration with the Bosnian accordionist Merima Kljuco. This program was put together by Shura Lipovsky and conducted by American guest-conductor Tamara Brooks for the occasion of the second conference of Musicians Without Borders in Utrecht. In 2005 Theodore Bikel joined the project, which toured though Poland under the name Bridge to Peace. A documentary under the same title Bridge to Peace has been made by the Dutch journalist Rob Simons.

Producer
Shura Liposky is artistic leader and producer of most of her concert programs and CD's

Other activities
For the last seven years she has been the artistic director of the Jewish Summer Song-School in London for the Jewish Music Institute (JMI). Since 2005 Shura Lipovsky lives partly in Paris and has a choir for Yiddish songs in Maison de la Culture Yiddish/Bibliothèque Medem. In 2008 and 2012 she was a member of the jury for the International Jewish Music Competition in Amsterdam. Shura Lipovsky is co-featured in the documentary Yiddish Soul by filmmakers Turi and Nathalie Finnociaro. In the documentary Terpe Kind Mains, Terpe (2009) she is performing the composition Biografie of Jeff Hamburg. In 2012 Shura Lipovsky was featured in a documentary on Dutch national television: ‘Jiddisj is mijn instrument’ by Pamela Sturhoofd.

Discography

 * Moments of Jewish Life. Syncoop Produkties, The Netherlands 1993. American Edition Omega 1996
 * Jews and Christians: Music in Medieval Spain, Ensemble Antequera, Syncoop Produkties, The Netherlands 1996
 * Vrouwvolk and friends life. Musicians without borders 2002. With 2 solos Shura Lipovsky: Anderleto and Durme, Durme.
 * Heroes and Poets/Giboyrim un Poetn, Extraplatte, Austria 2003.
 * Tsart, Tenderness in Word and Sound. Trio Shura Lipovsky. Music & Words, The Netherlands 2006.
 * VAYTiNKE, Shura Lipovsky and Novaya Shira. Music & Words, 2013.