Biography

Judy Bressler is a third-generation performer from the family of Yiddish theater luminaries Menashe Skulnick and Lucy Gehrman. While studying contemporary improvisation at the New England Conservatory of Music, Ms. Bressler became a founding member of the Klezmer Conservatory Band and is the featured vocalist on all ten of the band’s recordings. She can be heard with Itzhak Perlman on In the Fiddler’s House and Live in the Fiddler’s House recorded at Radio City Music Hall, and she was a featured vocalist in the documentary film A Jumpin’ Night in The Garden Of Eden and Joel Grey’s vaudeville review Borscht Capades ’94. She also appeared with Itzhak Perlman in 2009’s In the Fiddler’s House in Moscow and in 2015 at Carnegie Hall for the 100th anniversary of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene. Ms. Bressler can be heard with Yale Strom and Hot Pstromi on City of the Future, Yiddish Songs from the Former Soviet Union (ARC, 2015). Choreographer Bill T. Jones created new repertory for Boston Ballet inspired by Ms. Bressler. She makes his San Francisco Symphony debut at this performance.