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KlezKanada Kabaret

Hosted by Amit Weisberger

The KlezKanada Kabaret provides the opportunity for everyone at KlezKanada to perform. Bring your best material! Stand up, songs, skits, improv – this is your chance for five-minutes-of-fame. Joining us from France, our emcee this year is Amit Weisberger: violinist, dancer, actor, singer, scholar, entertainer, citizen of the world. In addition to hosting the cabaret, Amit will present excerpts from his Kabarétalè — songs from Jewish cabaret show, a tribute to the great Yiddish singer, Aaron Lebedeff. Special Guests will include raconteur Shane Baker and les enfants terribles of Yidlife Crisis — Eli Batalion & Jamie Elman.

Sax & Violins

This will be one of the most fidl-oriented KlezKanada summers ever. This year’s gloriously international string faculty includes violinists Deb Strauss, Mark Kovnatsky (Russia/Germany), Amit Weisberger (France/Israel), Lev “Ljova” Zhurbin (Russia/USA), Jake Shulman-Ment (USA with a strong dose of Hungary), Amy Zakar and fidl Fellow Abigail Reisman. Classes will focus on technique, style, repertoire, the fidl music of Carpathia, Roma/Gypsy styles, Belf’s Orkestar and other historical bands, writing and arranging for strings, and non-stop playing for dancing.

This year’s diverse string faculty also includes tsimbl-players Pete Rushefsky and Zev Feldman; Turkish oud player Nicolas Royer-Artuso; acoustic guitarist & mandolinist Jeff Warschauer; electric guitarist/composer/improvisor/bandleader Yoshie Fruchter; and two virtuoso bassists, Martin Lillich (from Germany) and Montreal’s Joel Kerr, master of modern Jewish bass.

For the first time ever, we have three different and unique saxophone/multi-instrumentalists who are all deeply imbued in Jewish music: composer/arranger/bandleader/funkmeister-supreme & Tzadik recording artist Paul Shapiro; Tokyo’s Wataru Okuma, master of chindon (street advertising music, the commercial medium before the advent of TV) and its predecessor, Jinta (original Japanese brass band music, a form for anti-establishment expression); and Afrobeat-ska-klezmer sax man Zach Mayer (from the band Zion 80). Each of their music is a mixture of old and new, east and west, north and south, borrowing openly from Klezmer, Jewish simkhe music, Turkish, African, African-American and Balkan music, progressive rock, punk, free jazz and folk to create its own world.

2016 Special Guests: SHTREIML

Founded in 2002, Montreal/Philly-based Shtreiml offers a high octane mix of not-so-traditional Eastern-European Jewish and Turkish music. Led by innovative composer, pianist and harmonica player Jason Rosenblatt, Shtreiml’s blues-rock infused set, delivers a new look at some centuries old folk music.

As part of KlezKanada’s “Oy vey, Izmir” look at Ottoman Jewish connections, Shtreiml will perform music from their album Eastern Hora, a compelling program of all-original music that transverses Ukraine to Istanbul, conjures images of the Bosphorus at sunset and truly transports the listener to a different time and place.

Shtreiml features the Balkan punch and rhythmic flair of Rachel Lemisch (trombone), Thierry Arsenault (drums) and Joel Kerr (bass). This is a project which is firmly rooted in the Jewish and Ottoman traditions, but brimming with hard rock sensibilities and dextrous improvisational know-how. Shtreiml has been labeled “explosive” (Halifax Chronicle Herald) and ”exhilarating” (Rootsworld).

SHTREIML will feature Turkish oudist and violinist, Professor Nicolas Royer-Artuso. Royer-Artuso started as a jazz musician, developed an interest in modal improvisations that led him to the Arabic musical heritage; then further studied Arabo-Andalousian music with Larbi Souss, flamenco music with Alain Montblanch, Turkish music with Oktay Akturk, Egyptian collaboration with Ali Sriti and violin with Kemal Demir. A noted academic focusing on linguistics Royer-Artuso will also lecture on a variety of topics from Turkish maqams to more philosophical subjects.

2016 Special Guests: Jinta-la-Mvta

KlezKanada is proud to present the Japanese band, Jinta-la-Mvta, a musical group founded in 2004 by Ohkuma Wataru, clarinetist and bandleader of the groundbreaking Japanese experimental folk band Cicala Mvta and his partner and drummer Kogure Miwazo.

Ohkuma’s interest in Klezmer music began in the late 80s. He was one of the first Japanese artists who listened to and played the genre. He has a repertoire of dozens of Klezmer tunes through his distinct perspective, setting him apart among non-Jewish klezmer musicians. Considered as one of the few Klezmer experts in Japan, he has also penned various pieces on Klezmer and Japanese liner notes of Klezmatics and Frank London. Since the Great Northeast Japan Earthquake and the subsequent nuclear crises in 2011, the band started to perform not only on club stages and festivals but also at anti-nuclear protests and demonstrations on the streets of Tokyo, attracting a new and wide range of audiences and fans.

Jinta-la-Mvta is: Wataru Okuma (clarinet) Miwazo Kogure (chindon, percussion) Naoki Hishinuma (tuba) Marié Abe (accordion)

Introducing Our 2016 Faculty

Our 2016 Faculty are now online (check back, as the list keeps growing!).

KlezKanada is pleased to introduce some of our new faculty for 2016!

Paul Shapiro (Saxophones, winds, composition, improvisation)

Paul is a mainstay on the Downtown NY Jazz funk and improv scene. With 4 cd’s on John Zorn’s Tzadik label, his bands include Midnight Minyan, the Ribs and Brisket Review, and many more. Paul has played with everyone — Lou Reed, David Byrne, Jay-Z, Rufus Wainwright, Antony and the Johnsons — all while leading bands at literally 1,000s of weddings. Read more about Paul…

Lev ‘Ljova’ Zhurbin (composing, arranging & strings)

Hailed by the New York Times as “dizzyingly versatile… an eclectic with an ear for texture… strikingly original and soulful”, LJOVA (Lev Zhurbin) divides his time between composing for the concert stage, contemporary dance & film, leading his own ensemble LJOVA AND THE KONTRABAND, as well as a busy career as a freelance violist, violinist & musical arranger. Among recent projects is a commission from the City of London Sinfonia, a string quartet for Brooklyn Rider new works for Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, The Knights, Sybarite5 and A Far Cry, as well arrangements for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Alan Pierson and the Brooklyn Philharmonic. More about Ljova…

Ohkuma Wataru, Kogure Miwazo, Naoki Hishinuma, members of Jinta-La-Mvta

Special Programming: A khasene at KlezKanada

Photo © Ivan Varshavsky

It is the greatest joy when we can blend together the personal, historical, theoretical, practical and political aspects of our lives; as our community’s traditions, histories, narratives, and aesthetics all come together in a grandsimkhe, a celebration of love. On Thursday night, the evening of our annual dance party, we celebrate the sacred and spectacular union of our friends and colleagues, Sarah Myerson and Ilya Shneyveys.

For Jews in Eastern Europe, the wedding was the social, cultural, and culinary highlight of their lives. It is said that every Yiddish theater show had to contain akhasene, a wedding. Klezmer, the instrumental musical tradition of Yiddish-speaking Jews in Eastern Europe, originally consisted largely of dance tunes, ceremonial music, and instrumental display pieces all for weddings. This Summer we bring it all together – music, dance, ritual, community, partying and love – as we celebrate an emese yidishe khasene, a real Yiddish wedding the likes of which one rarely encounters.

Over the course of the week we will learn nigunim for singing at the khusns (andkales) tish. There will be classes in playing for dancing as well as klezmer tunes for all aspects of the ceremony – firn di makhetunim, bazetsn and badekn di kale, fun der khupe, a khasene tants. Dance instructors Avia Moore and Steve Weintraub will teach and lead traditional Yiddish wedding dances popular and obscure, including the mezinke, broyges tants, and a full blown mitsve tants. The art department will make Yiddish banners to decorate the wedding. Everyone will be involved in celebrating the wedding of khazn (Cantor) Sarah Myerson, musician and singer, Yiddish dance leader, speaker and educator, recipient of the 2014 Arthur Einstein Memorial Prize in Composition; and Riga-born multi-instrumentalist, arranger, composer Ilya Shneyveys, artistic director of the Yiddish psychedelic rock band Forshpil, performer with Dobranotch, Opa!, The Klezmatics, Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird and others.

2016 Special Guests: Semer ReLoaded

Klezmer pioneer and accordion wizard Alan Bern returns to KlezKanada, bringing together an all-star band of Jewish music luminaries (including Lorin Sklamberg, lead singer of the legendary Klezmatics; KlezKanada favorites Sasha Lurje and Daniel Kahn; violin virtuoso Mark Kovnatsky, and others) to showcase an almost forgotten side of the ‘Golden Age of Jewish music’ – the Jewish songs recorded in 1930’s Berlin, Germany by Hirsch Lewin on his Semer label. SEMER ReLOADED has brought this amazing music back to life with their critically acclaimed concerts throughout Europe. 70 years after the Holocaust, the rich legacy of Berlin’s Jewish music scene as documented on the Semer label can be passed on to present and future generations. SEMER ReLOADED will also allow us to meet and learn with master of Yiddish thieves’ songs, Fabian Schnedler, and improv wizard and Tzadik recording artist, Paul Brody.

1920s Berlin, a Golden Age of Jewish music and musicians. In this milieu we find Hirsch Lewin, formerly a forced laborer conscripted to Germany from his native Vilnius during World War I. After the war, Lewin decided to remain in Berlin, found work in a bookstore, and in 1932 created his own record label, “Semer”. One year later, the Nazis came to power, forbidding Jewish musicians to perform in non-Jewish settings. Semer became a Noah’s Ark for Jewish musicians who had nowhere else to go. For five years, Lewin mad recordings at a feverish pace, creating a precious time capsule of a world facing annihilation. On November 9, 1938, SA hordes attacked the Hebräische Buchhandlung, demolishing stock and store, including 4,500 recordings and 250 metal plates. The memory of the Semer label fell into oblivion for the next 60 years.

In 2012, the Berlin Jewish Museum commissions Alan Bern to create an ensemble to perform music based on the original Semer recordings, copies of which had miraculously been found scattered throughout the world. The Semer Ensemble’s depth and virtuosity can and does match the entire breadth of Hirsch Lewin’s original Semer label recordings. Its fresh interpretations and provocative, contemporary arrangements open a time tunnel between 1920s Berlin and today’s New Jewish Music: Berlin cabaret, Russian folk songs, Yiddish theater hits, operatic arias and cantorial music are just a small sample of this remarkable repertoire.

Alan Bern (director, piano, accordion) Paul Brody (trumpet) Daniel Kahn (voice, ukulele, accordion) Mark Kovnatskiy (violin) Martin Lillich (bass) Sasha Lurje (voice) Fabian Schnedler (voice, electric guitar) Lorin Sklamberg (voice, accordion)

SEMER ReLOADED’s participation at KlezKanada is made possible in cooperation with the Ashkenaz! Festival.

Announcing the Themes of 2016!

Ghetto(s)

500 year after the opening of the world’s first ‘ghetto’ – the Jewish ghetto in Venice was established in 1516 – KlezKanada looks at the reality and the idea of ghettos, Jewish and others. ‘Ghetto’ is a highly charged word and concept, fraught with multiple meanings and associations. The Venetian Jewish ghetto was both a separation and an integration, an opening and a closing off, liberation and restriction. Max Weinreich, in his paper “The Reality of Jewishness versus the Ghetto Myth” asserted that “without a separate community there is no separate language,” to which we add ‘or separate culture, music, cuisine, identity.’ Ghetto as incubator of culture and identity; ghetto(s) as historical and contemporary reality.

Sholem Aleichem!

On this, the 100th yortsayt of the most beloved classical Yiddish writer, Sholem Aleichem (1859 – 1916, born Sholem Rabinovitz in Pereyaslav, Ukraine), KlezKanada will look at the man, his work and his world. Sholem Aleichem’s will contained detailed instructions to family and friends with regard to marking his yortsayt, telling friends to gather together, “select one of my stories, one of the very merry ones, and recite it in whatever language is most intelligible to you. Let my name be recalled with laughter,” he said, “or not at all.”

Oy vey, Izmir: Turkey and The Ottoman Influence on Jewish and Klezmer Music

Over the years, KlezKanada has looked at many of the important areas where klezmer music formed, and the way musics and cultures intersect. The connection between Yiddish klezmer and Turkish music is frequently mentioned anecdotally, as in this Wikipedia entry: “Klezmer music’s roots are Eastern European, often Romanian and Moldavian with Greek and Turkish influences;” or Josh Horowitz’s course description for Grand Theft Ottoman: “Kandel’s Freylekhs Fun der Khupe is also a Crimean tune, the Heyser Tatar is a Khaitama dance in 7/16, and Brandwein’s Araber dance was played as a Greek Zeibekiko.” Zev Feldman is more nuanced. “By the eighteenth century, klezmorim were also prominent in Ottoman Moldavia, particularly in the capital, Iasi (Yash). Some klezmer lineages persisted for a century or more, such as the Lemisches of Iasi and the Beltsi in Moldavia, first documented in the mid-eighteenth century, who spread to Istanbul, Beirut, and Athens—and to Philadelphia in the United States.” (Note: KlezKanada trombone instructor Rachel Lemisch is a descendant of this important klezmer family.) The list of contemporary artists melding Yiddish and Turkish music is a long one, including Jason Rosenblatt & Shtreiml, Merlin Shepherd, Christian Dawid’s Trio YAS, and many more. We will give this fascinating subject a more focused investigation, looking at both history and contemporary practice.

Hoffman Watts, Elaine

Born in 1932, Elaine Hoffman Watts is a third-generation klezmer musician, and a critically important, feisty, and enduring link to a particular Philadelphia-style Jewish klezmer sound, rooted in Ukranian and Romanian traditions, the southern regions of the Eastern European Jewish diaspora, different from (and long-obscured by) the better-known northern (Lithuanian, Polish) Eastern European Jewish ritual and celebratory musial styles. Working actively in Philadelphia in the early years of this century, the Hoffman family and other Philadelphia Jewish musicians shaped a Jewish American music reflecting the influences of their homeland as well as the musical culture of Philadelphia. Elaine’s drumming anchors this sound.

Her grandfather, Joseph Hoffman, a cornet player, came to Philadelphia about 1904. Hoffman taught other family members the klezmer music he learned as a child in Eastern Europe: horas, Russian shers, polkas, mazurkas, Russian kamaratskies and kazatskies, a czardas, waltzes, freilachs, bulgars, and tunes named after towns: Kishinev, Bogopolier (the town the family came from, near Odessa). Played by the Hoffman family and other musicians at certain times in Jewish weddings, and in the parties that followed, this music became part of a distinctly Philadelphia klezmer repertoire.

Ms. Watts’ father was Jacob Hoffman, a great klezmer drummer and xylophonist, and a versatile musician who knew many styles of music; he also played xylophone with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Born around 1898, he came to Philadelphia with his father and followed in the family tradition, making influential recordings in the first half of the century with the Kandel Orchestra, a well-known Philadelphia klezmer group.

The first woman percussionist to be accepted at Curtis Institute, from which she graduated in 1954, Watts has performed and taught for more than forty years, working in symphonies, theaters, and schools. Despite her skills and family heritage, when she was young Ms. Watts was seldom given opportunities to perform by klezmer bands, from the 1940s on: they didn’t want to employ a girl, even Jacob Hoffman’s daughter.

Ms. Watts began performing klezmer actively again about six years ago, with the group KlezMs, an all-female ensemble which included her daughter Susan Watts on trumpet. Now performing with an ensemble called the Fabulous Shpielkehs, Mrs. Watts is featured on a new CD, “I Remember Klezmer,” which draws on and documents her amazing family musical tradition. As well, she is on the klezmer CD, “Fidl,” with Alicia Svigals of the Klezmatics, has performed at KlezCamps and has been accepting invitations to play regionally. In June 2000, she was awarded a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. In 2007, she was awarded the nation’s most prestigious award in the folk arts, a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship.

Kagansky, Ed

Edward Kagansky was born in a small village near Kishinev, Moldova (formerly known as Bessarabia) in 1952. As a child, Kagansky longed to play the piano, but his father couldn’t afford one. Instead, he came home one day with a small suitcase containing a beautiful miniature accordion. Soon Edward was playing with local Roma musicians. By the time he reached his early twenties he was learning the klezmer (Jewish party) repertoire while traversing the Moldavian countryside with an octogenarian badkhn (folk poet and wedding entertainer) who went by the name of “Nakhes” (fulfillment).

In 1990, Kagansky left Kishenev, moving his family first to Cuba, and then three years later to Burlington, Ontario, but he never forgot his klezmer roots.

The Klezmatics

Wednesday, evening

The only Jewish music band to win a Grammy award and one of the longest working groups in the klezmer revival, the Klezmatics are thrilled to return to KlezKanada.

Buenos Aires Soiree

Tuesday, evening

Jacinta and the amazing Lerner Moguilevsky Duo lead our celebration of Yiddishkayt in Latin America – both in their KlezKanada debuts. A native of Buenos Aires and living in Paris, Jacinta is a singer, guitarist, actress, master of Yiddish tango and much more. Marcelo Moguilevsky and César Lerner present multi-instrumental and vocal mastery and an electric performance that infuses klezmer with Argentian folk music, jazz, contemporary music and tango.

OPA! St. Petersburg

Monday evening

The premiere klezmer-ska-punk party band from St. Petersburg, Russia makes their North American debut at KlezKanada, starting our week in celebration, music and dance.

Rubin_Album

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