THE SEVEN WONDERS OF KLEZMER

A concert featuring three of the contemporary Yiddish music scene's leading performers - violinist Lisa Gutkin (The Klezmatics), accordionist Lauren Brody and tsimbl (hammered dulcimer) player Pete Rushefsky.This program is presented by the Old Broadway Synagogue in partnership with the Center for Traditional Music and Dance and Yiddish New York.

Biographies of performers:

Lisa Gutkin(violin) - Grammy Award-winning violinist/composer, singer, actor, and composer Lisa Gutkinis best known as a member of the acclaimed , and most recently for her musical score, performance, and music direction in the two time Tony award-winner, .Lisa has had a storied career that reflects the eclectic nature of her life, passion, and creativity. A cameo performance in , a seat in Sting’s Broadway band for,aCD of original songs produced by John Lissauer, and scores for two of Pearl Gluck’s films have taken her a long way from her beginnings as back up musician to the songwriters’ collective.Praised for her “hauntingly emotional” vocals by the L.A. Times, she has co-authored songs with Anne Sexton, Maggie Dubris, and Woody Guthrie. AMacDowell and Norton Stevens Fellow, Lisa's song“Gonna Get Through This World”, co-written with Woody Guthrie, was described by Pete Seegeras “a piece of genius”

Lauren Brody(accordion) is an accordionist, singer, researcher, professional piano tuner/technician and Fulbright scholar from New York City. She is a pioneer of the klezmer music revival in the United States and a founding member of the groundbreaking band “Kapelye”, formed in 1979. She has toured, recorded and appeared on TV and film with Kapelye, and with the seminal all-female ensemble “Mikveh”. Lauren has played the with The Klezmatics, Andy Statman, Michael Winograd, David Krakauer, Alicia Svigals, Frank London, Merlin and Polina Shepherd and many other klezmer luminaries. She was a trailblazer in the domestic Balkan music scene and was the first female gadulka player in the United States. Lauren was an original member of the first Bulgarian traditional folk orchestra “Pitu Guli”, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1970 and has taught and performed at EEFC’s Balkan Camp, Klezkamp, KlezCalifornia, KlezKanada, Ashkenaz, Yidstock, Yiddish New York. Lauren was the recipient of a Bulgarian Government stipend to study Bulgarian folk music during the Communist period, from 1971-73, at the Bulgarian Conservatory of Music in Sofia. As a Fulbright scholar to Bulgaria in 1990 she conducted research on the commercial recording industry and folk music, and released two acclaimed reissues of 78 rpm recordings. Lauren continues to perform, with a particular accent on composing new music for her own Balkan/Klezmer-inspired solo project “Lauren Brody’s Accordion Bytes”, as “Tsoyber” with Yiddish singer Susan Leviton, and with the Bulgaria-based accordion duo Brody-Stoikov.

Pete Rushefsky(tsimbl) A leading performer, composer and researcher of the Jewishtsimbl(cimbalom or hammered dulcimer), Rushefsky tours and records internationally with violinist Itzhak Perlman as part of the Klezmer Conservatory Band, and collaborates with a number of leading figures in the contemporary klezmer scene including Andy Statman, Adrianne Greenbaum, Steven Greenman, Joel Rubin, Eleonore Biezunski, Michael Alpert, Madeline Solomon, Zhenya Lopatnik, Zoe Aqua, Jake Shulman-Ment, Keryn Kleiman, Eleonore Weill, Alex Parke, Ira Temple, Lauren Brody, Avi Fox-Rosen and Michael Winograd. Since 2006 he has served as Executive Director of the Center for Traditional Music and Dance, the nation’s leading organization dedicated to the preservation and presentation of diverse immigrant music traditions from around the world. He is a founder of the annual Yiddish New York festival, curated the Yiddish program at the 2013 Smithsonian Folklife Festival and has authored a number of articles on traditional music and culture.

We are grateful for the support of the Atran Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Host or Publisher Paul Radensky