I can only echo these beautiful tributes to beautiful, kind, exquisitely talented Adrienne. Marilyn Hassid has said how important she and her music were to all of us Houstonians who love Yiddish and Yiddishkayt. I met Adrienne in 1987, the first summer I attended the YIVO program at Columbia and loved our sessions singing with her on the grass, talking with her afterwards; someone (I'm sorry I can't remember who it was)wrote that she had the voice of a diva and the soul of a Bundist, and we all recognized it. We spent time together years later on her trips to Houston for the JCC Book & Arts Fair and at Texas' First Jewish Feminist Conference, where she sang, for the first time before an audience, "A gutn ovnt Brayne." But we also had fun: the evening before performing ESN, we went out for Mexican food, one of her favorites, she said, and a must-have in Texas. I suppose I idolized (and idealized her). One summer at YIVO I stopped by her office and the door had a sign on it, "nisht reykherin." When she welcomed me, smiling, she said she had been practicing a speech she had to give in Yiddish. I was shocked--that she would have to practice--because to me she always sounded perfect. Here in Houston I've spent most of the week end listening to her songs, remembering her grace and reverence for all people, and feeling the loss. I send my deepest sympathy to her beloved friends and family, and especially Sarah Mina.
I can only echo these beautiful tributes to beautiful, kind, exquisitely talented Adrienne. Marilyn Hassid has said how important she and her music were to all of us Houstonians who love Yiddish and Yiddishkayt. I met Adrienne in 1987, the first summer I attended the YIVO program at Columbia and loved our sessions singing with her on the grass, talking with her afterwards; someone (I'm sorry I can't remember who it was)wrote that she had the voice of a diva and the soul of a Bundist, and we all recognized it. We spent time together years later on her trips to Houston for the JCC Book & Arts Fair and at Texas' First Jewish Feminist Conference, where she sang, for the first time before an audience, "A gutn ovnt Brayne." But we also had fun: the evening before performing ESN, we went out for Mexican food, one of her favorites, she said, and a must-have in Texas. I suppose I idolized (and idealized her). One summer at YIVO I stopped by her office and the door had a sign on it, "nisht reykherin." When she welcomed me, smiling, she said she had been practicing a speech she had to give in Yiddish. I was shocked--that she would have to practice--because to me she always sounded perfect. Here in Houston I've spent most of the week end listening to her songs, remembering her grace and reverence for all people, and feeling the loss. I send my deepest sympathy to her beloved friends and family, and especially Sarah Mina.