KLEZMER CONQUEST: A Battle of The Bands

$5.00 General Admission

Join special guest MCs, our Natick neighbors, Cantor Ken Richmond and Rabbi Shira Shazeer, for an entertaining evening of Klezmer as we celebrate four local bands hitting the Aliyah bandstand. Having performed klezmer and Yiddish songs up and down the East Coast, in Israel, and in Eastern Europe, Ken and Shira will keep the program moving with their musical talents, Yiddishkeit, and humor.

Our four Klezmer Kontenders are:

Klezjam, who have been playing together for nearly 3 years, bring their unique musical stylings to nursing homes, assisted living centers, and an occasional bar mitzvah and wedding. The band got its name from the fact that the players met at two regular musical jams -- the Workmen's Circle jam and the Watertown jam.

JCC Klezmer ensemble, led by Barry Shapiro, is a class that meets at the JCC in Newton. Barry has been a long-time member of the Boston music scene, and was a founding member of The Klezmer Conservatory Band, Shirim, and the B.S.O. (Barry Shapiro Orchestra).

Shir Madness plays a mix of Yiddish show tunes, folk tunes and hits from the Borscht Belt. The band features distinctive dances and styles -- from bulgars to Terkishes, freylakhs to horas -- all of them popular in Eastern Europe and U.S. in the early part of the twentieth century and original pieces written by their own clarinet player, Richard Yospin.

The Shpilkes Klezmer Band has become a mainstay of the Purim celebrations and congregational events at various synagogues in MetroWest. The name "Shpilkes" (שפּילקעס) is a Yiddish word for "nervous energy" and also relates to the Yiddish term "shpil", meaning “play”, or, more precisely, "playing instead of sitting still". No one can listen to Shpilkes without wanting to dance to its lively, living melodies!