Klezmer Starts Here! A Benefit for Donkeysaddle, with Brivele and Tzepl

Name: Klezmer Starts Here! A Benefit for Donkeysaddle, with Brivele and Tzepl
Start: 2026-02-08T19:30:00-08:00
Location: 5000 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, WA, United States, Washington 98118

Schedule

Sun, 08 Feb, 2026 at 07:30 pm

UTC-08:00

Location

5000 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, WA, United States, Washington 98118 | Seattle, WA

This event is a benefit for Donkeysaddle Projects and their work with families in Gaza.
Klezmer Starts Here! is a curated series at Seattle’s Royal Room presented by the Klein Party and South Hudson Music Project featuring local and national klezmer musicians exploring the breadth and depth of Yiddish music.
Brivele is a Seattle-based duo who braid together Yiddish song, anti-fascist and labor balladry, folk-punk, and contemporary rabble-rousing in stirring vocal harmony. In Yiddish, means “little letter.” Like letters, songs travel — through time and over borders. They pick up dirt, aromas, fingerprints. They are sent to lovers, they foment revolution, they get stolen and censored, burned and salvaged, sewn into our clothes. Brivele is Maia Brown and Stefanie Brendler, who journey into the archives of Yiddish anti-fascist musical tradition, bringing together anti-authoritarian satire, mournful remembrances, and the disguised political commentary in folk ditties and theater classics. These songs are a correspondence: ancestors’ voices speaking clearly and uncompromisingly, sometimes sweetly, to the present moment.
Tzepl, meaning “little braid” in Yiddish, weaves together the accordion of Laurie Andres, the trombone and tuba of Jimmy Austin, and the violin of Mae Kessler into a musical experience that is at once harmonious and playfully quarrelsome. They approach instrumental Yiddish music—often known as klezmer—in a way that is mostly traditional but not strictly so. Their sound blends the lyrical, expressive style of 19th-century European string players with the brassy energy of early 20th-century American klezmer, with the accordion acting as the perfect bridge between worlds. Tzepl will draw you into poignant introspection and then inspire you to dance!
Doors 6:30, Show at 7:30