Born in East New York as the child of Russian-Jewish emigres, Albert Grand grew up in a Yiddish speaking household on New Jersey Avenue, where he developed a lifelong love for books (the poet Wordsworth was a particular favorite), a fascination with both Yiddish and English, and a deft, low-keyed sense of humor that was a mainstay of his life until his death on Nov. 14, 2018.
AL GRAND was a life-long Gilbert & Sullivan devotee with a fervent passion to preserve the Yiddish language. He combines these two enthusiasms by translating the Gilbert and Sullivan operas into Yiddish. In doing these translations he adheres faithfully to Gilbert’s dazzling rhymes while striving to preserve unblemished Yiddish. He endeavors to maintain a perfect match of verbal to musical cadence so that the lyric conforms to the accentuation and rhythm of each musical phrase. These works have been remarkably effective in bringing a renewed sense of the charm of Yiddish to U.S., Canadian and English audiences via fully staged productions. He was particularly interested in gauging the reaction of British audiences to this project. To his delight hundreds of people attended four sold out Yiddish G&S performances at the Rudolph Steiner Theatre at Regent Park in London in August 1996.
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