The press acclaimed her as the founder of a new genre: Alpine Klezmer. Andrea Pancur, the German singer hailing from Munich (Bavaria) unites Yiddish and Bavarian Folk music traditions and thereby creates an exciting and unprecedented musical mixture. She and her musical partner Ilya Shneyveys, the outstanding Latvian multi-instrumentalist, were rewarded for this achievement. They won the award „Deutscher Weltmusikpreis“ (German World Music Award) in 2014.

Her new album “Zum Meer“ (To the sea) goes one step further with respect to the development of the “Alp Klezmer“ genre: Yiddish and Bavarian Folk music tradition appear even more distinctly and are enriched by her witty, self-written lyrics. But what does that have to do with the sea? The sea – it is an allegory for freedom, happiness, life. But it appears that the refugee crisis has given the sea also other connotations: for example disaster, bondage, struggle for survival. The radicalization of the political world views endanger the peaceful social cohesion. Andrea Pancur engages herself in our delicate present with her new album. In the song “Mittelmeer – Galopp“ (Mediterranean Galop) she explores the issue of the disastrous conditions that refugees are faced with during their escape. In the song “A treyfener nign” she sings against hatred and ostracism. One song is called “homeless”. What does “home” mean to Andrea Pancur herself? In her song “Aufm Markt in Obergiasing” (At the Obagiasing Market) she looks nostalgically back at her own childhood in her home town Munich.

As on her first album she applies an in the Middle Ages established technique: she tracked folk melodies, researched in archives, screened material and wrote new lyrics on existing melodies. She also glanced at Italy. Andrea Pancur celebrates the cultural nearness in the song “Bella Ciao“: Three vocalists – including herself – sing in three different languages about three different contents. Their common denominator is the same melody.

Andrea Pancur terms her new album as “subversive”. She would like to set an example against seeing everything in black and white and against ostracism. The sea can mean this and that. The whole ambivalence is represented in Andrea Pancur's new album “Zum Meer”.