Aaron
Alexander is drummer based in NYC. He is leader of Midrash
Mish Mosh and a member of Frank London's Klezmer Brass All-Stars,
Greg Wall's Later Prophets, Alex Kontorovich's Deep Minor, Hasidic
New Wave, Klezmerfest, and has had the privilege of working with
the Klezmatics, Adrienne Cooper, German Goldenshteyn, Marilyn
Lerner, Ray Musiker, Pete Sokolow, and Alicia Svigals.
Dan
Blacksberg is one of the few trombonists playing klezmer
music on the east coast. He has performed or recorded in the US
and abroad with Frank London, Michael Winograd, Aaron Alexander,
Susan Watts, Elaine Hoffman Watts, the Klez Dispensers, Hankus
Netsky, Alan Bern, Adrienne Cooper, Alex Kontorovitch and the
Shirim Klezmer Orchestra. These musical associations have brought
Blacksberg to such far-flung locales as Hungary, Poland, Austria,
Germany, Canada and some strange corners of Brooklyn.
Actor, Singer, Director and Choreographer, Joanne Borts has appeared on and off Broadway in both English and Yiddish Theatre, and recently toured the US and Canada with Fiddler on the Roof starring Theodore Bikel, Harvey Fierstein and Topol. She’s had the privilege to perform with Kapelye, the Klezmatics KCB, FLKBAS, Klez Dispensers and the Three Yiddish Divas, and has collaborated with Jenny Romaine for over a decade on her labor of love, Kids & Yiddish. Joanne serves on the National Council of Actors’ Equity Association and was recently elected Vice President of the Hebrew Actors’ Union. Visit her website at www.JoanneBorts.com and follow Joanne on Twitter: @LushAndHora
Lauren
Brody is an alumna of the pioneering klezmer revival band
Kapelye, with whom she toured and recorded for over a decade,
and is also a Yiddish singer well known for her unique old-world
sound. Lauren leads a parallel life as a performer of the traditional
music of Bulgaria and the Balkans, and has won a series of grants
to conduct groundbreaking research in Bulgaria on early commercial
folk music recordings.
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Amy
Carrigan has been Associate Administrator at Living Traditions since 2008. She is a theater maker, puppeteer, photographer and singer of music from folk and avant garde improvisational music to classical and jazz. For the past 10 years, Amy has been a core member of the Brooklyn-based puppetry company, Drama of Works, as well as a principal artist in the New York/London-based vocal and movement-based performance group, Experience Vocal Dance Company since 2005. She is the great granddaughter of Armenian Composer, Grikor Mirzaian Suni, and has an innate thirst for traditional music from around the world.
Peggy/Khaye
Davis will lead evening activities for children. She has
taught at KlezKamp for many years and works as a calligrapher
and graphic artist. She also plays flute in the Wholesale Klezmer
Band.
Master
mixer, cratedigger, musical continent-spanner SoCalled (aka Josh
Dolgin) performs and records widely with a crew of mixed-up
freaks and geniuses from around the world, including C Rayz Walz,
Killah Priest, Matisyahu, Fred Wesley, Susan Hoffman-Watts, Frank
London, and Irving Fields. Armed with his Akai MPC, heritage and
love for genre-bending music, SoCalled is a Yiddish rapping, accordion
wielding, Klezmer hip hop maestro.
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Benjy
Fox-Rosen is a Brooklyn based bassist, singer, and composer.
He has performed internationally as a member of Luminescent Orchestrii,
a Balkan inspired string band, and is also a founding member of
PLAY! ensemble, a microtonal improvisation group. In 2007 Benjy
was a recipient of the Bronfman Fellowship for Emerging Jewish
Student Artists for "Minutn fun Bitokhn"
his suite composed around four Yiddish songs. Benjy performs regularly
with transylvanian folk band Metrofolk, Jake Shulman-Ment, Michael
Winograd, The Amazing Frozen String Quartet and with his own band,
Minutn fun Bitokhn, focusing on the songs of, and original setting of poems by Mordechai Gebirtig.
Jill
Gellerman has danced, written about dance, and taught dance at many institutions--from Western Illinois University to Yiddish Summer Weimar. She is a veteran staff member of KlezKamp and a guest artist at the YIVO/NYU Uriel Weinreich Summer Program in Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture.
Sarah
Gordon is a Yiddish singer and lyricist who has performed
with Frank London, The Klezmatics and Mikveh among others. Her
song lyrics have been recorded by Frank London's Klezmer Brass
Allstars, Mikveh, Khevre and The Klezmatics. At 5'2" she
is one of the tallest female poets in the history of Yiddish Literature.
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Klezmer
flutist and multi-instrumentalist Adrianne
Greenbaum teaches through her fusion of historical sensibilities,
dance, theory, old recordings and texts. Focusing on the revival
of the flute in klezmer, she performs and teaches throughout the
US, presenting master classes at universities and flute conferences
and is also on the faculties of Klezkanada and Klezmerquerque.
For
over 30 years bassist Jim Guttmann
has performed in a wide range of venues from smokey dives to Carnegie
Hall. He joined the Klezmer Conservatory Band at its inception
in 1980 and as a member of the band has performed and recorded
with Itzhak Perlman and Joel Grey. In addition to working with
KCB he is currently performing klezmer music with Andy Statman,
Alicia Svigals' Klezmer Fiddle Express.
When not at KlezKamp, trumpeter Ben Holmes leads the Ben Holmes Quartet, which plays new jazz inspired by his study of diverse musical styles. He also co-leads Tarras Band (a klezmer group in the classic mid-20th century American style, dedicated to the repertoire of the great Yiddish-American clarinetist Dave Tarras), and a folk/classical/pop/improv duo with accordionist Patrick Farrell He has also recorded and/or performed with Slavic Soul Party!, Justin Mullens' Delphian Jazz Orchestra, Banda de los Muertos, Brooklyn Qawaali Party, the Frank Carlberg/Nicholas Urie City Band, One Ring Zero, Gogol Bordello, Balkan Beat Box and Vampire Weekend.
Miriam
Isaacs specializes in Yiddish language and researches Jewish
sociolinguistics and Yiddish culture as a tool of identity and
empowerment. She has explored the uses of Yiddish language among
contemporary Hasidim and has recently written on the works of
dramatist Peretz Hirschbein. She has also written on Yiddish culture
in the Displaced Person's camps in postwar Germany. Dr. Isaacs
has been teaching Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland,
College Park, since 1995. Her teaching includes basic Yiddish
language and literature in the original and in translation, as
well as courses on Yiddish theater and film, fantasy and the supernatural
in Jewish literature and on the immigrant experience in Jewish
and other literatures.
Don
Jacobs is in charge of live sound and recording inside
the Tanzhal. You can find out much more about him at his website:
www.inconcertaudio.com.
He is always happy to be a part of the Klezkamp whirligig!
Eve
Jochnowitz is a culinary ethnographer, chef, baker, and
Yiddish instructor at the YIVO institute. She has lectured both
in the United States and abroad on food in Jewish tradition, religion,
and ritual as well as food in Yiddish performance and popular
culture. Ms Jochnowitz is the Chocolate Lady and writes regularly
on her blog, In
Mol Araan.
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Bill
Kornrich is a community cultural consultant, a descriptor
that he dreamed up. He works with a variety of non-profit cultural
organizations in the areas of organizational development, needs
assessment, community partnerships, and long-range planning. He
enjoys stage managing and getting people to work together. He
and his wife, Yvonne, live on a ridge overlooking the Clinch River
in east Tennessee.
A
familiar presence at KlezKamp since 1986,
Susan Leviton brings her depth of knowledge, engaging teaching
style, and infectious enthusiasm to all things Yiddish. She's
an accomplished singer and calligraphic artist who travels as
a performing artist-in-residence, sharing Yiddish culture and
contemporary Jewish arts. Susan works her magic on commissioned
artworks which range from greeting cards and ketubot to large
scale wall art for synagogues, JCC's, and independent living centers.
Whether in song or visual arts, her work is rooted in tradition
and reaches forward to stretch the imagination.
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Ken Maltz a founding member of Kapelye, the pioneering Klezmer band, has performed in hundreds of appearances on stage, television, radio and film throughout North America, Central America and Europe and is known throughout the world as a leading figure in the Klezmer revival. In addition to his career as a performer, he has composed musical scores and sound effects for Bantam Doubleday Dell audio books, including the popular Star Wars series, which features his music alongside that of Oscar-winning composer John Williams.
Sherry
Mayrent came to her first KlezKamp in 1987, an accomplished
clarinetist in styles other than klezmer. Within a few years,
she transitioned from student to apprentice to Staff in 1995 and
in 2001, as the Associate Director of Living Traditions and KlezKamp.
Her KlezKamp experience led to her becoming the clarinetist and
musical director of the Wholesale Klezmer band, the Western Massachusetts
ensemble she joined in 1990. She recently left that group to concentrate
her energies on the Living Traditions Online Sound Archive, of
which she is co-director. She is also a record producer and a
prolific composer of traditional klezmer tunes, and has published
several books of klezmer charts, as well as creating a volume
of traditional klezmer styles for PG Music's auto-accompaniment
program, "Band in a Box." Her passion for traditional
Yiddish culture is equaled only by her passion for traditional
Hawaiian culture.
Dan
Peck has been Operations Director for KlezKamp for the last 24 years and is the creator of the Epes Center. He is an old-time musician who has worked for many years at traditional music festivals and is on the board of the Charlie Poole Music Festival in Eden, North Carolina as well as a member of the Buck Mountain Band from Grayson County, Virginia. He designs cataloguing databases for the work of artists including Andy Warhol, Willem DeKooning and Richard Serra. He is also a published photographer and author of books on database programming and digital photography. www.danpeck.com
Film composer, flutist and keyboardist Sarah
Plant scores features, documentaries and multi-media museum
installations. She worked on Ang Lee's Oscar-nominated feature
Eat Drink Man Woman and has composed
for PBS, ITVS, Bravo, Canal+ (France), CBC (Canada), Hallmark,
the Center for Asian American Media, and for Spanish, Swiss and
other European TV. Sarah composed a commission for Bill T. Jones
Dance Company and has scored American Museum of Natural History
biodiversity films. She has received awards/grants from ASCAP,
the NEA and the American Music Center. She is former Music Editor
of Sing Out! magazine, and specializes
in music from around the world. www.sarahplantmusic.com
Ronald Robboy is an independent Yiddish theatre scholar as well as composer and musical investigator. An early West Coast experimentalist in the klezmer revival and a former YIVO research fellow, he was lead researcher for conductor Michael Tilson Thomas's Thomashefsky Project, for whose Carnegie Hall performances Robboy developed groundbreaking musical reconstructions of early Yiddish theatre numbers. He is a long-time cellist in the San Diego Symphony.
Jenny
Romaine is a founding member of Obie/Bessie winning Great
Small Works theater collective, music director/ring performer
in Circus Amok, and a member of the Folksbiene Yiddish Theater's
Kids and Yiddish Crew. Romaine collaborates with an intergenerational
army of artists committed to keeping new Yiddish theater at the
heart of social life.
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Mark
Rubin was born to musician parents who met on the University
of Arizona marching band and nurtured their son's connection to
Judaism and his eclectic musical tastes. The bass and tuba instructor
at KlezKamp, a radio and television host, and a music producer,
the multi-talented Rubin is also one of the country's most versatile
sidemen, adept at a variety of musical style and traditions. He
is a founding member of the Bad Livers and has toured internationally
with Frank London's Klezmer Brass All-Stars.
Henry
"Hank" Sapoznik is a four-time Grammy nominated
record producer, radio documentarian, author and performer of
traditional Yiddish and American music. He won a 2002 Peabody
award for his 10 week National Public Radio series "The Yiddish
Radio Project" and was nominated for an Emmy for his score
to the documentary film "The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg."
He is a producer for Time-Life Music and is currently working
on establishing a National Banjo Museum.
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Amanda (Miryem-Khaye) Seigel, MLIS, is a Yiddish singer, songwriter, actor, researcher and librarian in the Dorot Jewish Division of The New York Public Library. Miryem-Khaye has performed and taught Yiddish song and language throughout the United States, Canada, Poland and Australia. She is an original member of the Folksbiene Troupe (National Yiddish Theatre-Folksbiene).
Visit: http://www.amks.wordpress.com
Peter
Sokolow has had a career in Jewish music, commercial music,
and traditional jazz that has spanned over fifty years; he has
done more than 10,000 jobs in that time. He has performed with
many famous klezmer and jazz players, toured Europe and the U.S.
several times, orchestrated three Jewish shows and more than thirty
recordings, and appeared in or arranged for several TV "specials"and
documentary films. He is the author or co-author of books on klezmer
and articles about the klezmer scene, and has lectured extensively.
He has taught at KlezKamp since its inception.
Vera
Sokolow's 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.
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An
internationally acclaimed klezmer violinist and teacher, Deborah
Strauss is a member of the Strauss/Warschauer Duo and was
a long-time member of the Klezmer Conservatory Band and the Chicago
Klezmer Ensemble.
Paula Teitelbaum is a singer and Yiddish teacher, and has been on Klezkamp staff for many years. Her singing has been featured on the recordings Vaserl, Zumerteg, Fli,Fli, Mayn Flishlang, and on the soundtrack of the documentary film Image Before My Eyes. Together with Lorin Sklamberg she co-produced the cd Di Grine Katshke/The Green Duck, which features her singing as well. Paula has taught at the YIVO Summer Intensive Yiddish Program, and has worked as an English as a Second Language and Spanish teacher at John Bowne High School in Queens, NY.
Jeff
Warschauer is internationally renowned as a guitarist,
mandolinist, 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.
Elaine
Hoffman Watts is a third-generation klezmer musician, scion
of the great Philadelphia Hoffman family of klezmorim. 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 with her daughter Susan Watts. She is a 2007 recipient of
the National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowship Award.
Susan
Watts 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. She works
and records with a range of talented musicians including her mother
Elaine Hoffman Watts, Frank London and the Klezmer Brass All-Stars,
Mikveh, anad the KlezDispensers.
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Steve
Weintraub is a teacher, choreographer, and performer specializing
in Jewish dance. He received his training with Alvin Ailey and
Erick Hawkins, and danced for Felix Fibich. He teaches Yiddish
dance workshops internationally, leads dancing at Simchas, and
collaborated on Hopkele, a cd of music especially for dancing
Laura
Wernick is a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan's
Joint Doctoral Program in Social Work and Political Science. She
is currently working on her dissertation on social justice philanthropy
and young donor organizing. More specifically, she is exploring
the role of young people with wealth in social justice movements.
Author
of Born to Kvetch and Just
Say Nu, an overnight sensation at 52, Michael
Wex has been teaching at KlezKamp longer than anyone cares
to remember. Novelist, playwright, lecturer, performer and authority
on language and literature, Wex has been called "a Yiddish
National Treasure" and "the finest translator around."
Clarinetist
Michael Winograd is based in Brooklyn,
NY and has taught and performed internationally. He has played
with Frank London, Alicia Svigals, Socalled, Joe Morris, Kenny
Wollesen, and Jenny Romaine to name a few. Michael's favorite
color is purple and he enjoys kreplekh
and green tea on the weekends.
Alan Zemel performs Russian, Greek, Rroma, and Carpathian Music on balalaika and domra. His world changed from black-and-white to brilliant color at age 6, when he fell in love with Russian folk music after hearing the Russian Army Chorus’s “Kalinka.” He’d already been won over to Beethoven, Chopin, Bach and Mozart by his mother, a concert-trained pianist. Zemel has performed with the The Gypsy Balalaikas (East European), Balalaika Russe (Russian), Novo Selo (Macedonian) and Panegyri (Greek), and writes original music.
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