| Home | Programme | Sponsors | Directions |  |
Klezmer in the Park bands
(Click on band name to find out more ...)
1.00pm: Lucie Skeaping and The Burning Bush
Exotic traditional instruments
1.45pm: Stewart Curtis’ K-Groove
Klezmer blended with modern jazz
2.30pm: Shir
Israeli Yiddish and Simcha music
3.15: Gregory Schechter's Klezmer Band
Fiery Russian spirit
4.00pm: Moishe’s Bagel
Folk frenzy from Scotland
4.45pm: The Merlin Shepherd Quartet
Greek and Turkish influenced klezmer
5.30pm: She'Koyokh Klezmer Ensemble
Klezmer with Balkan infusions
All afternoon:
- Hopkele! Dance callers Ilana Cravitz and Guy Schalom help you dance your socks off
- Jewish Museum Art Tent free activities for children of all ages – make musical instruments and paper crowns from recycled materials. Drop in, no need to book
- Jewish Museum Exhibition 3½ Centuries of British Jewish Life. See how one of Britain’s oldest minorities met the challenges of maintaining its distinctive religion and identity while playing an active role in society
- See displays about Jewish culture organisations
- CDs for sale in the Jewish Music Distribution tent
- Programme for the day published in the Jewish News get your copy in the marquee.
Dave Schneider Compere
Dave Schneider researched a PhD in Yiddish drama at Oxford before coming to prominence as a writer, actor and comedian in award winning TV comedy shows such as I’m Alan Partridge, Knowing Me Knowing You, The Day Today. He has appeared in numerous films including Mission Impossible, A Knight’s Tale and 28 Days Later and most recently in his own kid’s show for the BBC, Uncle Max. Writing credits include the film All the Queen’s Men starring Matt Le Blanc and The Eleventh Commandment about intermarriage for the Hampstead Theatre. His new play is about the Moscow Yiddish state theatre under Stalin and a documentary about Yiddish for Radio 4. He can be seen in Dave Baddiel’s forthcoming film The Infidel and regularly “tweets” on twitter.com/davidschneider.
- Learn Klezmer music, song and dance www.jmi.org.uk (JMI summer schools and evening classes)
- Klezmer recordings www.jewishmusic-jmd.co.uk
- Book klezmer bands for your party: jewishmusic@jmi.org.uk
Band biogs:
Gregory Schechter's Klezmer Band
Perform Klezmer with intense and fiery Russian spirit
Gregory Schechter - Clarinet
Ronnie Goldberg - Guitar
Robbie Charles - Bass
David May - Drums
Alan Dunn – Accordion
Gregory Schechter established the first klezmer band in the UK band in 1991, at the invitation of the Jewish Music Institute, bringing with him all his musical experience and background from both Russia and Israel. Ever since the band’s triumphant debut concert in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Gregory’s band has been in demand, playing at sell-out concerts, functions and festivals across the UK and abroad. They have made numerous radio and TV recordings for BBC and ITV documentary films. In 1998 Schechter was commissioned to write a Rhapsody for Klezmer Clarinet and Symphony Orchestra which he premièred with the Oxford Philomusica at the Barbican. He has created 5 albums produced by ARC and the Jewish Music Institute with the National Sound Archive.
’Schechter's clarinet conveyed the full gamut of human emotion, sometimes melancholic and sobbing, at other times uplifting as it picked up the giddy tempi of Yiddish dances’. The Times
‘Whether blazing through a freilich or delivering a plangent melody, Schechter conveys his delight in the form’ Jewish Chronicle.
Ilana and Guy’s Hopkele Productions
Hopkele!
Ilana and Guy lead Yiddish circle and line dances and help you dance your socks off to the best UK klezmer bands. No Yiddish dance experience necessary - they'll show you how!
Hopkele Productions Ltd holds regular Jewish dance events with a twist - the phenomenon known as the KLEZMER KEILIDH.
‘They got the crowd going’ The Jewish Chronicle
Lucie Skeaping and The Burning Bush
Perform Foot-tapping klezmer, Hassidic melodies and Judeo-Spanish ballads on a plethora of traditional instruments played with breathtaking virtuosity.
Lucie Skeaping - vocalist, violin
Ben Harlan - clarinets, darabukka
Jon Banks - accordion, cymbalom, kanun
Robin Jeffrey - ud, laouto, guitar, mandolin
Roddy Skeaping - violin, rebab
Robert Levy - double bass
Since their debut at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, this group has played to packed houses throughout the world, from Denmark, Croatia and Finland to South America and London's Barbican. They are regulars on BBC radio 3 and Classic FM, have worked in films including 'The Pianist' and 'Defiance'; TV includes Simon Schama's 'History of Britain', 'The Heaven and Earth Show' and the series 'Early Music'. They performed R Skeaping's orchestral work 'The Vanished Shtetl' with the BBC Concert Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, broadcast live on Radio 3. This multi-talented sextet has produced a number of widely acclaimed recordings and always presents music that is impossible to resist whatever your background, a magical journey into nostalgia, hope and joy.
‘Burning Bush offers the original World Music where Europe, Africa and the Orient freely mingle’ The Independent
‘An absolute joy - grace, passion and virtuosity’ Glasgow Herald
Seduce with melodies from Jewish Eastern Europe, Greece and Turkey
Merlin Shepherd - clarinets
Polina Shepherd - piano
Simon C Russell - bass
Chris Taylor - percussion
Merlin Shepherd is an internationally sought after and acclaimed performer and teacher. He has played, recorded and toured with seminal bands including Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars (USA), Budowitz (Europe), Sukke (Europe) and UK’s own The Burning Bush. In 2007 he formed the Merlin Shepherd Kapelye featuring the former Soviet Union Klezmer Allstars, whose CD of new compositions ‘Intimate Hopes & Terrors’ was featured as Top of the World in Songlines. The Merlin Shepherd Quartet, brings together the music of Jewish Eastern Europe, Greece and Turkey and takes elements of Klezmer, Fasil and Demotika, creating delicious and thrilling new repertoire using bubbling rhythms, driving grooves, intoxicating modes and melodies reminiscent of both the shtetl and the souk.
‘He colours and shapes every phrase… providing spiritual and emotional heart’
London Evening Standard
‘A force to be reckoned with’ Time Out
Folk frenzy from Scotland
Phil Alexander - piano and melodica
Greg Lawson - violin and mandolin
Pete Garnett - accordion
Mario Caribé - double bass
Guy Nicolson – percussion
Formed in Edinburgh in 2003, Moishe’s Bagel combines the energy and passion of Eastern European folk music with the excitement and soul of improvisation. The band comprises some of Scotland’s best instrumentalists and is equally at home jamming in a late night jazz den, grooving at a forest festival, or enthralling an upmarket concert hall. They have toured England, Ireland, Scotland, and Eastern Europe, and performed at many major Festivals including the Larmer Tree, Sheep Music, Orkney St Magnus and 'Simcha on the Square'. Last summer the Bagels had sell-out shows at the Edinburgh Jazz and Fringe Festivals. Both their albums Don’t Spare the Horses and Salt have featured on Radio 3, and they have performed live sessions for Radio Scotland and RTE and won the Edinburgh Three Weeks Critics' Choice Award last year.
‘exhilarating, full-flavoured stuff, often breath-takingly intricate but played with jubilation … the Bagel acquires the momentum of an express train’
The Herald
‘expressive and raunchy … improvising confidence but with a classical attention to detail … striking new material’
The Guardian
Award-winning klezmer with Balkan infusions
Meg Hamilton – violin
Susi Evans Clarinet
Matt Bacon – guitar
Oliver Baldwin – Double Bass
Vasilis Sarkis – Percussion (Darbucka, tapan and riqq)
Ben Samuels – mandolin
Dimitris Chaidemanakis - percussion
Cigdem Aslan - vocals
She’Koyokh was established in 2001 helped by a JMI Millennium Award and is now at the forefront of the revival of East European roots music in the UK. The 8-piece ensemble brings a fresh, passionate energy to a repertoire from exhilarating Balkan wedding music to soulful Ashkenazi melodies from Jewish villages of Poland, Romania and the Ukraine. Since their 2004 Southbank debut at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall where She’Koyokh premiered a klezmer concerto by Rohan Kriwaczek, the ensemble has toured the UK and Europe, performed on BBC radio and television and appeared at Glastonbury, Broadstairs, Edinburgh and Krakow Festivals. They won first prize at the International Jewish Music Festival in Amsterdam in 2008. In 2009 they play at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, KlezFest in London and Buskers Bern. Their first album ‘Sandanski’s Chicken’ is released on the ARC label.
‘all musicians have plainly got rhythm in their bones, and all displayed an amazing ability to characterise the music by enhancing the normal range of their instruments. It’s invidious to pick anyone out from such a well-knit group, but I have never heard any other clarinettist pull so many notes out clean and clear at such a breakneck pace, or with such infectious enthusiasm.’ Oxford Times
Shir
Combine Klezmer, Israeli, Yiddish and Simcha music
Maurice Chernick – Clarinet, Voice
Ivor Goldberg – Guitar, Voice
Piotr Jordan – Violin
Steve Rose – Bass
Formed in 1997 by Maurice Chernick, Shir, meaning ‘song’ or ‘poem’ in Hebrew,
has become a major force on the UK Jewish music scene performing concerts and festivals and fulfilling the original function of the Klezmorim – entertaining at Simchas – Jewish parties. With four musicians from different musical backgrounds: classical, jazz and gypsy folk, Shir has for the past 3 years been performing in Spain, at festivals in Madrid and Cordoba at the invitation of Casa Sefarad (a Jewish Cultural department of the Spanish Ministry of Culture). Recently Shir was invited to play at the Salute to Israel in Trafalgar Square, the Kindertransport 70th Reunion and the Maccabi GB 70th Gala. The group has recorded 2 CDs From The Heart and Israeli Songs and will shortly be releasing their 3rd album.
‘Shir provides a harmony of shalom and happiness, and combines virtuosity with accessibility’ Felix Benasully - Torremolinos, Spain
‘The difference between a good Simcha and a great Simcha is Shir!!!’
Bar Mitzvah client
Play Klezmer and Arabic melodies with Latin and modern jazz and dance grooves
Stewart Curtis - clarinets,sax,flute & piccolo
Rob Terry - keyboards
Brad Lang - bass
Hans Ferrao - drums
Paul Jayasinha - trumpet
Ronen Kozokaro - Percussion
Eran Kendler - Guitar
Multi Instrumentalist/composer Stewart Curtis formed his ensemble K-Groove in the mid 90’s after spending a brief but productive spell with Gregory Schechter’s Klezmer Band. K-Groove fuses klezmer with other styles particularly Jazz and Latin and was voted the top band in ‘Klezmer Idol’ on the Jewish Chronicle website in August 2007 and performed at KlezFest in Hyde Park and at ‘Simcha on the Square’ that year. Stewart has recorded with many famous stars and ensembles including Nick Kershaw, Paul McCartney, Tracey Ullman, Selina Jones, Percy Sledge, Daphna Sadeh and the Voyagers, Russel Stone, Yehoram Gaon and Lipa Schmeltzer. The ensemble has produced 2 CDs Too Loud for Dinner (1995) and Smoked Salmon Salsa (2000) A third CD is to be released soon.
‘This guy is good! Like Artie Shaw before him he's taken a traditional idiom through a new perspective. If you have an enquiring taste in music try this!’ Folk Roots
‘A jittery band who attacked their numbers like Greek-taverna entertainers on hallucinogenic hummus’ Evening Standard