Aaron Alexander (percussion)
Aaron Alexander is a drummer, composer, bandleader and educator. He leads the group Midrash Mish Mosh, and is a member of Hasidic New Wave, Greg Wall's Later Prophets, Frank London's Klezmer Brass All-Stars, Alex Kontorovich's Deep Minor, The Yiddishe Swingtet, and Alicia Svigal's Klezmer Party Band. He also washes dishes, vacuums and does the laundry on occasion.
 http://www.aaronalexander.com |
Michael Alpert (vocals, violin, accordion, percussion, dance)
A frequent flyer, Emmy-award winning musical director, and pioneering figure in the renaissance of klezmer music and Yiddish culture for 30 years, Alpert has performed, recorded and taught worldwide with Brave Old World, Khevrisa, Kapelye, David Krakauer, Itzhak Perlman, Theodore Bikel, and German Goldenshteyn. He is also known to venture onstage alone.
http://www.michaelalpert.org |
Thierry Arsenault* (percussion)
A drummer and percussionist who has been playing professionally for over 17 years. Thierry
studied music and jazz at Cegep St-Laurent and the McGill Conservatory of Music. He is based in
Montreal and is a founding member of Shtreiml.
http://www.shtreiml.com |
Adrian Banner* (Fellow)
Adrian Banner hails from Sydney, Australia, where he started studying piano at age three. Ever since, he has been immersing himself as a performer, composer, and arranger in a wide variety of musical styles including klezmer, jazz, ska, reggae, classical, showtunes, ragtime, and liturgical music. He is a founding member of The Klez Dispensers and plays keyboard in King Django's Roots and Culture Band..
http://www.klezdispensers.com/ |
Gary Beitel (filmmaker)
A Montreal based filmmaker, his documentaries have won national and international awards. His most recent film is the lively Chez Schwartz, on the legendary deli. His acclaimed Bonjour! Shalom! won a Gémeaux for Best Québec Documentary. He teaches documentary film at McGill University and the Canadian Screen Training Institute.
http://www.chezschwartzfilm.com
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Theodore Bikel (actor, singer, activist, union leader, arts advocate)
Theodore Bikel is world renowned. His first movie was The African Queen. His first Broadway musical was The Sound of Music. Tevye is his other name. He was president of Actor's Equity, Carter's first Arts appointment, is translator, poet, ardent champion of Yiddish, has recorded 30+ albums (2 in the last year), and there is more....
http://www.bikel.com
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Kurt Bjorling (clarinet, saxophone, tsimbl, accordion)
Kurt Bjorling, best-known for his clarinet playing, plays many instruments and builds some of them. He has performed and recorded with Brave Old World, Chicago Klezmer Ensemble, and The Klezmatics, enjoys a good cup of tea, and is grateful to his mother, Marta, for making his appearance here possible.
http://www.muziker.org |
Annette Bjorling (Fellow)
Her speciality is klezmer harp, creating a unique voice that fits naturally within Yiddish music. Annette is a member of several ensembles including Duo Controverso (with Kurt Bjorling). She was musical co-director of the Klezmerorchester (Germany), and has performed and taught at international music festivals in Europe and North America.
http://www.muziker.org
|
Daniel Blacksberg* (Fellow)
Daniel Blacksberg started playing trombone when he mistook the hook used in Looney Tunes cartoons for a trombone slide. He's been sliding ever since. Daniel has slid with many fine folks including Frank London, Alan Bern, Michael Alpert, Aaron Alexander, the Shirim Klezmer Orchestra, the Klez Dispensers and Michael Winograd. |
Nicolai Borodulin (Yiddish language)
Assistant Director of the Center for Cultural Jewish Life at the Workmen's Circle and a Yiddish language instructor. He is the author of Yiddish Year Round, a book for young beginners. He lectures about Birobidzhan, where he was born, as well as about Yiddish literature and culture. |
Joanne Borts (singer, actor, director, choreographer)
Joanne has had the good fortune to perform in the US, Canada and Eastern Europe with many great klezmorim including The Klezmatics, Khevrisa, Frank London’s Klezmer Brass All-Stars and the Klezmer Conservatory Band. She has appeared on Broadway, Off Broadway and around the world in both English and Yiddish Theatre. Favorite new projects: Harts & Soul w/ Lorin Sklamberg & Rob Schwimmer, and the Three Yiddish Divas w/ Adrienne Cooper and Theresa Tova.
http://www.yiddishdivas.com |
Tamara Brooks (conductor, pianist, professor, arts advocate, activist)
She has performed internationally, recorded 10 albums, been nominated for a Grammy and designed a school for the arts in Cyprus. A graduate of Juilliard, she has combined a performing career with a love of teaching throughout her professional life.
http://www.bikel.com
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Stuart Brotman (bass, tsimbl, percussion)
Has played and recorded with the great and the near-great, as well as the would-be great and the mediocre, not to mention the really bad and downright humiliating. He has defined klezmer bass (it is a large instrument that plays really low and has an accent). |
Adrienne Cooper (singer, educator)
One of this generation's most influential performers of Yiddish vocal music, appearing on concert, theater, and club stages, recording, teaching and lecturing on Yiddish music around the world. In her day job she is Assistant Executive Director of the Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring.
http://www.goldenland.com/adrienne_cooper.htm
|
Alexander "Sasha" Danilov (clarinet)
Born in the south Moldovan town of Tiraspol, Danilov is a
virtuosic player of Moldovan/Romanian styles who explores connections
between Moldovan music, klezmer music, and jazz. A member of the
Moldovan Presidential Orchestra, he teaches at the Moldovan National
Conservatory and taught at Yiddish Summer Weimar in 2006. |
Ari Davidow (typography)
Typographer and organizer Ari Davidow has worked with Hebrew and other
alphabets for 30 years. A pioneer developer of online community, he is
currently the Director for Online Strategy at the Jewish Women's Archive,
host of the Jewish Music mailing list, and chief instigator of the
KlezmerShack.
http://www.klezmershack.com
|
Shari Davis (artist, educator)
She creates art events, exhibitions and curricula exploring culture, history and identity. Along with her husband Benny Ferdman, she has conducted Yiddish arts programming for KlezKamp, Yiddishkayt LA, and the Workmen’s Circle Camp Kinder Ring. |
Josh Dolgin* (accordionist)
Plays accordion with Montreal's Shtreiml, sings with Toronto's Beyond the Pale, leads an LA-based young klezmer group The Alef Project and plays sampler with David Krakauer's Klezmer Madness! ensemble in New York. Solomon and Socalled's Hiphopkhasene hit the top ten on the European world music charts.
http://www.socalledmusic.com
|
Sruli Dresdner (clarinet)
A multi-instrumentalist and vocalist who draws on his Hasidic background to teach and perform klezmer and Hasidic music all over the world. He is one half of the Sruli and Lisa duo.
http://www.sruliandlisa.com |
Walter Zev Feldman (tsimbl, dance)
Professor, Department of Musicology, Bar Ilan University, Israel, is a leading researcher in klezmer music. In the 1970s he helped to initiate the revitalization of klezmer music and reintroduced the tsimbl. He is also a practitioner and teacher of Ashkenazic dance. |
Arkady Gendler (Yiddish song)
He was born in the Romanian town of Soroca in 1921, and is one of
the last remaining exponents of traditional and folk-style Bessarabian
Yiddish song. A treasure-chest of Yiddish folklore, cultural activist
and teacher, his expertise and spirit are unparalleled. Living in
Zaporizhe, Ukraine, Gendler has taught and performed worldwide. |
Melanie Glatman* (cabaret coordinator and stage manager)
Has studied theater history and has performed under the direction of Polish theater director and dramaturge, Kazimierz Braun. Holding a degree in Modern European History, her studies have taken her to Poland where she restored desecrated Jewish cemeteries and connected with the renewal of Jewish life. Melanie holds a Masters of Science in Education. |
Arkady Goldenshtein (clarinet)
The nephew of the late German Goldenshteyn, Arkady Goldenshtein was born in Mogilev-Podolsk on the border of Ukraine and Moldova in 1963, and has lived in Israel since 1990. He has played clarinet since childhood, and performed regularly at Jewish community events during the communist era, which was in those days a somewhat risky venture. He has participated in many festivals in Israel and abroad, and has toured in England and Germany. His ensembles have been awarded prizes at the Safad and Raanana Klezmer Festivals. He currently conducts the Haifa Klezmer Orchestra, and teaches clarinet at conservatories and in the public schools. |
Sarah Mina Gordon* (Fellow)
Sarah Mina Gordon is a Yiddish singer and lyricist who has recorded and performed with the Klezmatics, Frank London's Klezmer Brass All-Stars, Kol Isha and Michael Alpert among others. Her innovative lyrics, which put a twist on traditional folk themes, are sung around the world by a new generation of Yiddish performers and are featured on albums by the top Klezmer bands in the world. A lover of all things cheese related (from Gruyere to cottage) she has recently joined with Michael Winograd to create Yiddish Princess, a musical experience informed by their mutual passion for Yiddish songs and power ballads of the 1980s. |
Itzik Gottesman (folklorist)
Itzik Gottesman is the Associate Editor of the Yiddish Forward newspaper. He has a Ph.D in Folklore from the University of Pennsylvania and has written on the history of Yiddish folklore. He has conducted folklore fieldwork among older Yiddish speaking Jews particularly with an interest in folksong, folk custom and folktale in New York, Mexico and Israel. |
Adrianne Greenbaum (flute)
Pioneering revivalist of klezmer flute and multi-instrumentalist (piano, viola, accordion), teaches through historical sensibilities, dance, theory, recordings and texts. Performs throughout US and abroad with her ensemble FleytMuzik. Founder/pianist/dance-leader Klezical Tradition. Principal Flute, New Haven Symphony. Associate Professor of Flute, Mount Holyoke College. Director, 5-college kapelye. Faculty: KlezKamp, Klezmerquerque.
http://www.klezmerflute.com
|
Steven Greenman (violin)
Recognized as one of the finest practitioners of traditional East European Jewish violin today, a co-founder of the Khevrisa and the Di Tsvey ensembles and a serious composer of traditional klezmer music.
http://www.stevengreenman.com |
Yaela Hertz (violin)
As concertmaster of the McGill Chamber Orchestra and as the violinist of the Hertz Trio, she has concertized and given master classes around the world, and has been on the faculties of McGill University, Conservatoire de Musique du Québec, École Vincent D'Indy, and the National Youth Orchestra of Canada. |
Elaine Hoffman Watts (drums, percussion)
Heir to the three generation Hoffman Klezmer tradition of Philadelphia. |
Joshua Horowitz (19th century accordion, tsimbl)
He is the director of Budowitz and co-founder of Veretski Pass, and has recorded with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra. He published The Ultimate Klezmer and The Sephardic Songbook, and has received the Prize of Honor for composition, presented by the Austrian government.
|
Dan Kahn* (Fellow)
At KlezKanada since 2004. A Detroit-area native, U of Michigan grad in
theatre and writing, award-winning theatre artist, writer, and composer, he
has produced 5 CDs, the most recent being The Broken Tongue, with his
radical Yiddish punk cabaret band The Painted Bird, based in Berlin. Where
he lives. |
Marvin Katz (trumpet)
Has performed as a Jewish wedding musician in Philadelphia and Atlantic City, New Jersey, from the mid 1940s through the late 1960s. In 1997, he resumed his musical career and has recorded with Hankus Netsky (his nephew) and the Philadelphia Klezmer Heritage ensemble. |
Alex Kontorovich* (clarinet, saxophone)
As a child, Alex loved mathematics because he couldn't speak English and waited in lines for bread. Since then, he has been tolerated onstage with the Klezmatics, Klezmer Brass All-Stars, Midrash Mish Mosh, Beyond the Pale, and found the Klez Dispensers and Deep Minor (they were under a large stone).
http://www.alexkontorovich.com |
Rachel Lemisch* (trombone)
Philadelphia trombonist,
is a member of the Chamber Orchestra of
Philadelphia and is a student of Nitzan Haroz,
principal trombone of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Rachel's klezmer studies began at the New England
Conservatory with Hankus Netsky. Rachel is a member of
Shtreiml and The Fabulous Shpilkhes, and has
guested with The Klezmer Conservatory Band and The
Klezmer Brass Allstars.
http://www.shtreiml.com |
Marilyn Lerner (composer, improviser, pianist, chorale)
An exhilarating jazz pianist and improviser, she performs to acclaim internationally, from her native Montreal to Havana, from Jerusalem to Amsterdam and the Ukraine. Lerner’s work spans the worlds of jazz, creative improvisation, and klezmer. Her most recent work includes Romanian Fantasy, a solo CD of improvisations on traditional Eastern European Jewish music.
http://www.marilynlerner.com |
Margot Leverett (clarinet, alto saxophone)
Margot Leverett was a founding member of the Klezmatics in 1985 before moving on to establish a solo career. Her current project, Margot Leverett and the Klezmer Mountain Boys, is an all-star band combining the best of bluegrass and klezmer. Margot recently appeared as a guest soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra.
http://www.klezmermountainboys.com |
Jenny Levison (playwright, screenwriter, filmmaker, performer)
Her work has played in theaters across the United States. Plays include: Shtil, Mayn Corazon -- A Yiddish Tango Cabaret, Don't Kiss Me I'm In Training, Dia de los Muertos, The Next Big Thing. Training: physical theater, Theater of the Oppressed, MFA: NYU Dramatic Writing, where she now teaches. |
Frank London (trumpet, keyboards)
He has just won a Grammy with The Klezmatics for their CD, Wonder Wheel, and is having fun creating modern Yiddish musical theater with A Night in the Old Marketplace (his latest CD, featuring everyone from Lorin Sklamberg to They Might Be Giants) and Green Violin (performed with KlezCanada alumnae Di Fidl Kapelye in Amsterdam and Russia).
http://www.franklondon.com |
Sasha Luminsky (accordion)
A virtuoso accordionist, Sasha was born in Ukraine, and graduated music college in the Moldavian SSR and conservatory in Leningrad. He moved to Canada in 1992, and has toured throught Canada, the USA and Europe. He is a member of Beyond the Pale and Trio Norte.
http://www.luminsky.com |
Rebecca Margolis (scholar)
She is assistant professor in the Vered Jewish Canadian Studies Program at the University of Ottawa, where her area of specialization is Jewish culture in Canada, in particular in relation to Yiddish. She holds a doctorate in Yiddish Studies from Columbia University.
|
Lisa Mayer (violin, vocals)
The other half of the Sruli and Lisa duo. Lisa performs and teaches klezmer music and dance all
over the world. She also has extensive experience in the musical education of children and
teenagers.
http://www.sruliandlisa.com |
Avia Moore* (Scholarship Coordinator, dance)
Director, actor, dancer, academic, Avia is pursuing an MA in theatre studies with a focus on directing for the stage. She is the founder of Burnt Wine, a theatre company dedicated to the creation of contemporary Yiddish performance.
|
Hankus Netsky (accordion, piano)
Holds Bachelor and Master degrees in composition from New England Conservatory and a Ph.D.
in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University. He is the founder and director of the Klezmer
Conservatory Band.
|
Eugene Orenstein (scholar)
Professor of Modern Jewish History, McGill University and specialist in the culture of eastern European Jewry.
http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/jewish/faculty/orenstein_e.html |
Stanislav Rayko* (violin)
He is the founder and lead violinist of the Kharkov Klezmer Band (Kharkov, Ukraine). A leading performer and
educator in the revival of Jewish music and culture in the Former
Soviet Union, Rayko lives in Hamburg, Germany and is active in
producing the music of former Soviet Jews throughout Europe. He has
taught for many years at Klezfest (Saint Petersburg). |
Elie Rosenblatt* (violin)
A Montreal native, he has performed klezmer internationally. His intensive research in the old klezmer fiddling style culminated in the release of his CD Tsimbl un Fidl with tsimbl player Pete Rushefsky. |
Jason Rosenblatt* (piano, harmonica)
One of the few people worldwide who can play the diatonic harmonica chromatically, Jason has helped to expand the frontier of the diatonic harmonica from the blues towards Eastern European folk music and beyond.
http://www.shtreiml.com |
Danny Rubinstein (clarinet, saxophone)
He is one of the leading lights of first-generation American reed players.
Well known in Jewish circles, he has performed with virtually every
“name” artist in a career spanning over 60 years. He recorded the album The Happy People with his own klezmer group on the ABC Paramount label
in 1959.
|
Pete Rushefsky (singer, tsimbl)
Pete Rushefsky is a leading performer of klezmer music on the tsimbl and 5-string banjo and is the Executive Director of the Center for Traditional Music and Dance.
http://www.cmtd.org
|
Nahma Sandrow (scholar, playwright, author)
Nahma Sandrow has lectured at Harvard, Oxford, the Smithsonian
Institution in Washington, DC, and the Young Directors Lab at Lincoln
Center. She is the author of Vagabond Stars: A World History of
Yiddish Theater, God, Man, and Devil: Yiddish Plays in
Translation, and books and articles on related subjects, as well as
two award-winning Off-Broadway shows based on Yiddish theater material.
|
Henry Sapoznik (Musician, Scholar, Producer, Author)
He is an award winning author, radio and record producer and performer of traditional Yiddish and American music. He founded KlezKamp: The Yiddish Folk Arts Program in 1985, wrote Klezmer! Jewish Music From Old World to Our World (2000) and co-produced the 2002 Peabody award winning NPR series the Yiddish Radio Project.
http://www.klezkamp.org |
Aaron Schwebel* (Fellow)
Violinist Aaron Schwebel has just completed his first year at McGill University as winner of the prestigious Lloyd Carr-Harris String Scholarship. Aaron had his solo debut with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra at 17, and is scheduled to perform as a soloist with the McGill Symphony Orchestra this fall. Aaron has served as concertmaster for the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra, and McGill Symphony Orchestra. |
Cookie Segelstein (violin)
Cookie Segelstein is founder of the trio Veretski Pass with Joshua Horowitz and Stu Brotman and plays in Budowitz and The Youngers of Zion. With a Master's degree from the Yale School of Music, Cookie plays with the New Haven Symphony as assistant principal viola, and plays any kind of music she can to make a living. |
Emily Socolov (visual artist and folklorist)
Director of Mano a Mano: Mexican Culture Without Borders, an arts presenting organization in New York City. Ph.D. in Folklore and Folklife; specialist in Mexican Culture, Folk Religion and Material Culture studies. Teacher at KlezKanada, Workmen's Circle-Arbeter Ring, KlezKamp; consultant with Smithsonian Institution's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. |
Peter Sokolow (piano, keyboard)
A link between the older generation of klezmer musicians and younger interpreters, he has orchestrated, arranged music and performed with numerous klezmer pioneers. |
Vera Sokolow (textile art)
Her connection to Jewish textile art began with membership in the Pomegranate Guild of Judaic
Needlework and flourished after she crocheted her first yarmulke, designing a keyboard motif for
her husband, Peter. Using a multiplicity of hand and machine techniques (e.g. quilting, applique and
embroidery), she has since produced challah covers, Purim napkins, more yarmulkes, kittels, shofar
bags, wall hangings and several chuppahs.
|
Eric Stein* (mandolin, cimbalom, electric bass)
A versatile multi-instrumentalist and a prominent figure in Toronto's klezmer music scene, Eric is leader of the acclaimed group Beyond the Pale, with whom he has toured extensively and won a number of awards. Eric also performs with SoCalled, Hu Tsa Tsa, the Toronto Mandolin Orchestra, and Electric Meat.
http://www.beyondthepale.net |
Deborah Strauss (violin, accordion, vocals)
An internationally acclaimed klezmer violinist, she is a member of the Strauss/Warschauer Duo
and was a long-time member of the Klezmer Conservatory Band and the Chicago Klezmer
Ensemble.
http://www.klezmerduo.com
|
Asya Vaisman* (singer, songwriter, scholar)
Asya Vaisman is a Yiddish singer and songwriter who lives in New York.
She is working on her PhD thesis at Harvard on the Yiddish songs and
singing practices of contemporary Hasidic women. She has performed
extensively with the Columbia and Harvard Klezmer Bands.
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~vaisman/index.html |
Josh Waletzky (Yiddish song, theater, film)
Josh Waletzky is a distinguished filmmaker
(documentary and narrative), theater artist, and
musician. A lifelong Yiddish singer and
songwriter/pianist, he is one of the founders of the
klezmer revival.
|
Jeff Warschauer (guitar, mandolin, vocals)
Internationally renowned as an instrumentalist, Yiddish singer and teacher. He is a member of the Strauss/Warschauer Duo, was a long-time member of the Klezmer Conservatory Band, and is on the faculty of Columbia University.
http://www.klezmerduo.com |
Susan Watts (cornet, trumpet)
Represents the youngest generation of a Klezmer dynasty that reaches back to the Jewish Ukraine of the 19th century, beginning with her great grandfather, bandleader Joseph Hoffman.
http://www.susanwattsonline.com
|
Steven Weintraub (dancer, choreographer)
Steven teaches Yiddish dance workshops throughout the US, Canada, and Europe. He received dance training in Manhattan with Alvin Ailey and Erick Hawkins and choreographer Felix Fibich. He choreographed for the Joseph Papp Yiddish Theater, and created a company of Bottle Dancers. Steven works in Chicago as dance leader and performer with Maxwell St. Klezmer Band and as a choreographer of shows and revues. He collaborated on Hopkele, a new CD of music especially for dancing. |
Joey Weisenberg* (guitar, mandolin, bass)
Based in New York City, Joey plays regularly with bands such as Romashka, Zagnut Orchestar, Village Klezmer Orchestra, and Ansamble Mastika, and has performed or recorded with artists such as Marija Krupoves, Yuri Yunakov, and Gerard Edery.
http://www.joeyweisenberg.com |
Michael Wex (author)
One of the foremost exponents of Yiddish commentary and expression, he has translated extensively between Yiddish and English including the Yiddish version of The Three Penny Opera. His most recent book is called Born to Kvetch.
http://www.the-yiddish-world-of-michael-wex.com |
Michael Winograd* (Clarinet)
Reedist Michael Winograd lives in New York, where he spends his time making squeaks, honks, shreiks and every so often music (and on the very rare occasion, art). He is the founder of Khevre, and Infection (his newest project.) He is the musical director of Kids in Yiddish, at the Folksbeine, and spends the rest of his time listening to Air Supply.
http://www.michaelwinograd.com |
Robin Young (Fellow)
Robin Young is from Syracuse New York. She’s a school librarian by day and an artist by night. Robin has worked in various mediums from clay to cloth to beads, both secular and Judaic. Some of her wearable art can be seen on different family members. |
Amy Zakar* (violin)
A second-generation musician and violinist of
The Klez Dispensers. A versatile teacher and performer, Amy
made her Yiddish cabaret debut in the Catskills at age twelve. She joined the KlezKanada faculty in 2006. |
