Benjamin Mink is a Canadian songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer best known as a longtime collaborator of Canadian singer k.d. lang. He plays several string instruments, notably the guitar, violin, and the mandolin.
Susan McKeown is an Irish folk singer, songwriter, arranger and producer.
"Mermaid's Avenue" is a song written by American folk singer Woody Guthrie. In 1943, Guthrie moved his family to 3520 Mermaid Avenue, Coney Island, New York. The song is named after this street. There, Guthrie was an active participant in the thriving cultural and political scene of Brooklyn's Jewish community. The song's title later served as the project title for the Wilco and Billy Bragg album Mermaid Avenue; a cover version by the New York-based klezmer band The Klezmatics is included on their 2006 album Wonder Wheel.
Frank London is an American klezmer trumpeter who also plays jazz and world music.
Alan Bern is an American Jewish composer, pianist, accordionist, educator and cultural activist, based in Berlin since 1987. He is the founding artistic director of Yiddish Summer Weimar and the Other Music Academy (OMA). He is internationally recognized for his contributions to the research, dissemination and creative renewal of Jewish music with Brave Old World, The Other Europeans and the Semer Ensemble, among others. He is the creator of Present-Time Composition, a musical and educational approach informed by cognitive science that integrates the methods of improvisation and composition. In 2016 he received the Weimar Prize in recognition of major cultural contributions to the city of Weimar. In 2017 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Free State of Thuringia, and in 2022 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
"Raisins and Almonds" is a traditional Jewish lullaby popularized in the arrangement by Abraham Goldfaden (1840-1908) for his 1880 Yiddish musical, "Shulamis". It has become so well known that it has assumed the status of a classic folk song. It has been recorded as both a vocal and instrumental by many artists over the years, including Itzhak Perlman, Chava Alberstein, Benita Valente, and Ella Jenkins. It is a common lullaby among Ashkenazi European Jews (Ashkenazim). This song has multiple translations and multiple versions, which have slight changes in both Yiddish and English lyrics.
Alicia Svigals is an American violinist and composer. A co-founder of the Grammy-winning band The Klezmatics, she is considered by many to be the world's foremost living klezmer fiddler.
The Woody Guthrie Foundation, founded in 1972, is a non-profit organization which formerly served as administrator and caretaker of the Woody Guthrie Archives. The Foundation was originally based in Brooklyn, New York and directed by Woody Guthrie's daughter Nora Guthrie.
Nora Lee Guthrie is the daughter of American folk musician and singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie and his second wife Marjorie Mazia Guthrie, sister of singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie, and granddaughter of renowned Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt. Nora Guthrie is president of The Woody Guthrie Foundation, president of Woody Guthrie Publications and founder of the Woody Guthrie Archive, and lives in Mt. Kisco, New York.
Michael Alpert is a klezmer musician and Yiddish singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, scholar and educator who has been called a key figure in the klezmer revitalization, beginning in the 1970s. He has performed solo and in a number of ensembles since that time, including Brave Old World, Kapelye, Khevrisa, The Brothers Nazaroff, Voices of Ashkenaz and The An-Sky Ensemble, and has collaborated with clarinetist David Krakauer, hip-hop artist Socalled, singer/songwriter/actor Daniel Kahn, bandurist Julian Kytasty, violinist Itzhak Perlman, ethnomusicologist and musician Walter Zev Feldman, trumpeter/composerFrank London and numerous others.
Woody Guthrie's Happy Joyous Hanukkah is an album by The Klezmatics, released in 2006. It contains Hanukkah-themed songs, with most of the lyrics written by American folk singer Woody Guthrie in 1949.
Margot Leverett is a New York-based clarinettist. Born in Ohio, she lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Buffalo, New York before studying at Indiana University School of Music. At Indiana, she was classically trained. Leverett later became interested in klezmer, a traditional musical style of the Jews of Eastern Europe. She studied with klezmer clarinettist Sidney Beckerman and was a founding member of The Klezmatics in 1985. The Klezmatics, a band associated with the Klezmer revival would later become the first klezmer band to win a Grammy Award.
Wonder Wheel is a 2006 album by neo-Klezmer band The Klezmatics. It features lyrics by Woody Guthrie which were unrecorded during his life. It won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album at the 49th Grammy awards.
Metropolitan Klezmer is a New York band that was established in 1994. While clearly a Klezmer band, Metropolitan Klezmer takes an eclectic approach to Yiddish musical genres from around the globe.
Daniel Kahn & the Painted Bird is a German klezmer band founded by Jewish-American singer-songwriter and actor Daniel Kahn, originally from Detroit, Michigan. The band was formed in 2005 and is based in Berlin. They have released five albums through German world music label Oriente Musik.
Possessed is an album by the American klezmer group the Klezmatics, released in 1997.
Brother Moses Smote the Water is a live album by the American klezmer group the Klezmatics, with Joshua Nelson and Kathryn Farmer. It was released in 2005 by Piranha Records. The album mixes together traditional Yiddish songs and gospel.
Lisa Gutkin is an American violinist, singer and songwriter of The Klezmatics. She played in Sting's The Last Ship, had a cameo appearance in “Sex and the City,” and is a MacDowell Fellow at the MacDowell Colony. Lisa appears on hundreds of recordings including From Here On In, a CD of her original songs produced by John Lissauer, and Play Klezmer Fiddle!, an instructional DVD. She has co-authored songs with Woody Guthrie, Anne Sexton, and Maggie Dubris, and composed for symphony orchestra, dance, and film. She is the Co-Music Director and Co-Composer for the Broadway show "Indecent (play)" which won 2 Tony Awards for Best Direction of a Play and Best Lighting Design of a Play in 2017.
Matt Darriau, is a Balkan, klezmer, Celtic and jazz musician. His most notable work is with Balkan rhythm quartet Paradox Trio, The Klezmatics, and Orange Then Blue.
KlezKanada is a Canadian organization for the promotion of klezmer music and Yiddish culture. Its principal program is a week-long Jewish music festival founded in 1996 that takes place annually in August at Camp B'nai B'rith in Lantier, Quebec. The organization also hosts workshops, concerts, and other educational programs in Montreal throughout the year.
