Biography

A leading voice in the world of klezmer music and Yiddish song for more than thirty years, the Klezmer Conservatory Band (KCB) continues to thrill audiences all over the world. With a repertory ranging from Yiddish standards to rousing dance medleys, the KCB musicians have served as important ambassadors in promoting the universal appeal of Jewish music. Over the years the band has appeared at dozens of international music festivals in major venues across the US, Europe, and Australia, and on ten international broadcasts of A Prairie Home Companion. KCB provided the musical accompaniment for The Fool and the Flying Ship, a 1991 video featuring Robin Williams; played an integral role in Joel Grey’s Borscht Capades ’94; and performed the music for the American Repertory Theatre production, Shlemiel the First. Since the late 1990s, Itzhak Perlman has featured KCB in his CD, video, and touring project, In the Fiddler’s House, including performances at Wolf Trap, Great Woods, Radio City Music Hall, the Ravinia Festival, the Saratoga Music Festival, Moscow’s Barvikha Concert Hall, the Mizner Park Amphitheatre in Boca Raton, FL, and the Mann Music Center (Philadelphia). In December 2002, the KCB performed a concert of orchestral arrangements of klezmer and Yiddish music with the Atlanta Symphony. In 1988, Bill T. Jones choreographed a piece based on music from their CD, A Jumpin’ Night in the Garden of Eden, for the Boston Ballet. Recently, the band re-joined Mr. Perlman as an integral part of his cantorial/Hassidic/klezmer/Yiddish folk music project, Eternal Echoes. The band was also featured in Rejoice!, a full-length PBS Great Performances music special.

(January 2019)