Frey, Isabel, MSc
(Senior Artist)

Isabel Frey is a Senior Artist at the Department for Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology and a Yiddish singer. She studied interdisciplinary Social and Cultural Studies at Amsterdam University College (2013-2016) and Medical Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Amsterdam (2017-2018). Her dissertation in the interdisciplinary, structured doctoral program "Music Matters" at the mdw (2020-2024) deals with contemporary transmission and performance practices of Yiddish folksongs as well as the political dimensions of the Yiddish voice. In 2023, she spent a semester at the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University as a Visiting Fellow. In addition, together with Benjy Fox-Rosen, she leads the Artistic Research Pilot Project “Challenging the Theater of Memory: Yiddish Song beyond Kitsch and Stereotype” at the Music and Minorities Research Center at the mdw. Her research interests include Jewish music and diaspora, ethnomusicological minority research, music and protest, music and nationalism, folk music transmission and performance practice, gender, queer and postcolonial studies, voice and sound studies, and music in the context of memory politics.

As a musician, Frey regularly performs in various ensembles at home and abroad. Her debut album “Millenial Bundist” was released in 2020, followed by the debut album of her vocal duo “Soveles” together with Esther Wratschko in 2022. In fall 2024, the next album "Di Fliendike Pave" will be released on the New York Yiddish music label Borsht Beat. In the period 2023-2024, she was selected as one of five artists in the "World Music" category for the Austrian Foreign Ministry's “New Austrian Sound of Music” support program. In addition to her artistic work, Frey is also active as a curator and event organizer. She is co-organizer of the Friling Festivals for Yiddish Music and since 2024 co-curator of the KlezMORE Festival Vienna. She is also the founder of the Jewish-Arab peace initiative Standing Together Vienna and part of the art collective One State Embassy, working for a just peace in the Middle East both musically and as an activist.

Contact: +43/1/711 55 4219 | Room: AW U 0229
e-mail: frey@mdw.ac.at