Album Notes

Helene Engel is an opera singer, musicologist, composer, lyricist and arranger. Specialist in Jewish folklore she was proclaimed Best Jewish Singer of France in 1984. Hélène sings in Yiddish, Hebrew, and Judeo-Spanish, as well as in English and French. She has produced four recordings, and the most recent, "Ay Lu Lu," was released in 1996 in Montreal. Hélène's tours have taken her throughout France and to major folklore festivals in Europe and Northern America.

Now based in Montréal, she sings occasionnally as cantorial soloist at Temple Emmanuel.

Since she graduated in Music Therapy at UQAM in April 2000, she also works as a Music therapist in private practice as well as in community settings.


Hélène Engel invites you on a journey...
To other times and other lands... She lifts her audiences no matter how varied, and carries them along to discover new styles and rhythms, from classical melodies to traditional songs, from chanson réaliste to children's tunes, from ballad to tango, and from Klezmer music to oriental chant.


About the CD Ay lu lu
PRESS REVIEW

"Ay Lu Lu, Hélène Engel's CD, should please children and adults alike (...) If language can build barriers, the joie de vivre is universal. And this is truly the strong feeling we get listening to this album."
La Presse - Montreal, Saturday, December 16, 1995

The album Ay Lu Lu is more than a selection of children's songs. It is a real musical and multicultural journey through our memories and childhood dreams. All audiences, Jewish or other, will enjoy discovering or rediscovering these traditional Yiddish songs, among which are a few first recordings (...)
[Hélène Engel] is an author-composer and performer gifted with a rich and expressive voice (...).
Le Journal d'Outremont - Décembre 1995

"Montreal-based soprano Hélène Engel's latest CD is the delightful Ay Lu Lu (...). This release includes an outstanding rendition of that most famous of Yiddish lullabies, Rozhinkes mit mandlen (...) as well as an a capella song Ms Engel wrote for her own new-born son Noah."
Forward (New-York) - 26 June 1996

(...) These songs are nearly myths, throwing listeners into a world of dreams, poetry and absurd, and bringing them closer to the inner reality of the human experience.
Hélène Engel is above all, a voice of remarkable purity (...) and of overwhelming sensitivity.
Tribune Juive - Décembre 1988

Create openings, dialogues, encounters, this is Hélène Engel's goal (...). A pure and flowing voice for a universe of dreams, poetry and humour.
Paroles et musique - 1989

(...) Hélène Engel's astonishingly pure voice explores with incredible grace the different facets of Jewish heritage. Not the most popular, not the least musical
Télérama - 30 Nov.- 6 Déc. 1985