Sunday, November 12, 2023

Presented in partnership with the Jewish Studies Program at Purchase College, SUNY.

Since their emergence almost 40 years ago, The Klezmatics have released 13 albums to date, most recently the albums Letters to Afar (Chant Records, 2021) and Apikorsim (World Village, 2016) produced by Danny Blume (who helped the band win a Grammy in 2006). Live at Town Hall, the 2011 Klezmatics release, captures the group’s March 5, 2006 20th anniversary concert at the storied New York venue. The set features a cross-section of music from throughout The Klezmatics’ history, and includes a lengthy list of special guests, among them their original clarinetist Margot Leverett, who had previously never recorded with the band. On their Grammy-winning 2006 album Wonder Wheel, the band set a dozen previously unsung Woody Guthrie lyrics to music, widening their stylistic base by largely diverging from klezmer. They have also served as the subject of a feature-length documentary film, The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground.

During their remarkably long career, The Klezmatics have collaborated with such brilliant artists as violinist Itzhak Perlman, Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner and Israeli vocal icon Chava Alberstein, plus many other prominent performers working within multiple genres. The Klezmatics have garnered numerous awards and accolades throughout their career, including a 2006 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album (for Wonder Wheel: Lyrics by Woody Guthrie), a New York Jewish Music Award (Best Klezmer Band, 2006), a GLAMA (Gay and Lesbian American Music Award) and the German Critics Award (twice), among others, and have topped the Billboard world music charts on numerous occasions.

Today, with three original members—Lorin Sklamberg (lead vocals, accordion, guitar, piano), Frank London (trumpet, keyboards, vocals) and Paul Morrissett (bass, tsimbl, vocals)—still on board, alongside longtime members Matt Darriau (kaval, clarinet, saxophone, vocals), Lisa Gutkin (violin, vocals), and Richie Barshay (drums, vocals), The Klezmatics are without a doubt the most renowned proponents of klezmer music in the world.

The Klezmatics’ music is rooted in but is not a strictly traditional variety of the klezmer genre. Rather it is a comfortable hybrid that appeals equally to those with no previous exposure to the music and those already familiar with it. Formed in New York in 1986, The Klezmatics quickly built a devoted following that expanded outward once word spread about this exotic new band that was bringing klezmer back from the abyss."