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Klezmer Did Not Exist In a Vacuum

Benjy Fox-Rosen discusses how Klezmer varied from region to to region and was influenced by the music of surrounding cultures.

From Math to Klezmer Music

Henri Oppenheim, klezmer musician based in Montreal, talks about he first got interested in Jewish music, and how moving from Paris to Montreal influenced his career.

The Impulse That Drove Me to Klezmer Music

Joshua Horowitz, Austrian musician and composer, explains the impulse he felt in Austria in the 1980s that drove him to learn more about klezmer music. A friend named Aron Saltiel introduced him to it.

A Klezmer Concert Featuring Itzhak Perlman

Moishe Rosenfeld - founder of GoldenLand Concerts & Connections, a New York City-based booking agency for Jewish performing arts - describes putting on a concert of great klezmer musicians that featured violinist Itzhak Perlman.

Working From Place of Minority: Reflections on Queers in the Klezmer Revival

Helena Lipstadt, a poet and garden designer, reflects on the first days of the klezmer revival of the 1970s, and the intersection of Jewish and LGBTQ identities.

Klezmer Music Helped Me Discover the Creative Power of Yiddish

Anne (Khane) Eakin Moss, Yiddishist and Russian Literature Professor, explains how her love of klezmer music led her to see the importance of the Yiddish within Jewish culture.

"I Like What's Happening in the Klezmer World": Reflections on the State of Jewish Music and KlezKanada

Cantor Jack "Jackie" Mendelson—New York cantor and recording artist— discusses his excitement about klezmer music today.

You are Klezmer the moment you can carry just one simple tune

Assaf Talmudi explains that he likes folk music and especially Klezmer music because you can take part in it on many levels, which allows new musicians to participate.

"Choosing" to Play the Clarinet

Georg Brinkmann—klezmer musician and teacher—speaks about how he picked up and started learning the clarinet.

Hankus Netsky

Hankus Netsky - ethnomusicologist, founder of the Klezmer Conservatory Band, and Chair of Contemporary Improvisation at the New England Conservatory in Boston - was interviewed by Nora Feinstein on July 8, 2010 at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, ...

2010-07-08

Lorin Sklamberg On His Early Experiences With Jewish Music

Lorin Sklamberg, lead singer for The Klezmatics and YIVO sound archivist, explains how his earliest exposure to Jewish music was through Israeli folk songs as he goes on to describe the beginning of his interest in klezmer.

Michal Moniuszko

Michał Moniuszko, musician and teacher, was interviewed by Christa Whitney on May 4, 2013 in Sejny, Poland, where he grew up in a Roman Catholic family. The community is small, and everyone knows each other. The natural landscape is beautiful. Michal...

2013-05-04

Assaf Talmudi

Assaf Talmudi - Israel-based music producer, researcher, and accordionist for Oy Division - was interviewed by Christa Whitney on August 24, 2011 at KlezKanada in the Laurentian Mountains of Canada. Assaf Talmudi begins the interview describing hi...

2011-08-24

Daniel Kahn

Daniel Kahn, Berlin-based Yiddish singer and songwriter, was interviewed by Christa Whitney on August 24, 2011 at KlezKanada in the Laurentian Mountains of Canada. Daniel grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan. Daniel's mother was born in Det...

2011-08-24

Frank London

Frank London, founding member of the Klezmatics and Frank London's All-Star Klezmer Brass Ensemble, was interviewed by Christa Whitney on August 24, 2011 at KlezKanada in the Laurentian Mountains of Canada. Frank's interview begins with an interest...

2011-08-24

"They Hadn't Heard Anything About Yiddish or Klezmer": Bringing my Music to Iceland

Polina Markovna Shepherd, Yiddish performer, composer, and choir leader, reflects on her trip to Iceland with a choir group. She describes the exchange of knowledge and culture, and the amazing, advanced, creative music they were able to create toget...

Velvel Pasternak

Velvel Pasternak, z"l, musicologist, composer, arranger, conductor, and major publisher of Jewish music, was interviewed by Hankus Netsky at his home in Cedarhurst, NY on August 15, 2011. Velvel, born in Toronto, Ontario in 1933, could play piano by...

2011-08-15

But is it Klezmer? Rock, Jazz, Punk, Hip-hop, and Techno Bring New Sounds to the Jewish Mix

Michael Winograd

Michael Winograd, lauded Brooklyn-based klezmer clarinet player, was interviewed by Pauline Katz on August 24, 2011 at KlezKanada in the Laurentian Mountains of Canada. Michael begins his interview by briefly describing his family as half Russian an...

2011-08-25