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A Klezmer gathering featuring Christina Crowder, Ilya Shneyveys, David Licht (the original drummer for the Klezmatics), and surprise guests
Safe Social Distancing Seating With Very Limited Ticket Availability. Tickets Are Sold By The Table ONLY. Tables seating 2 - 4 guests, with tables for 6 -8 available upon request. See The Attached Seating Chart. Five Indoor Tables With Open French Doors Facing The Performance And Eight Outdoor Tables Are Available. Rain date will be announced for a Sunday in October. Admission Is Still Only $15.00 Per Person But Must Be Purchased As A Table For Safety Table Of Two = $30., Four = $60., Six = $90., and Eight = $120
"Call In the Klezmorim" Lisa Gutkin and Matt Darriau (of the Klezmatics) host a Klezmer gathering featuring Christina Crowder, Ilya Shneyveys, David Licht (the original drummer for the Klezmatics), and surprise guests. Klezmer, the music of the Ashkenazy Jews of Eastern Europe, is fun and poignant and enjoyed by people, with all ages and styles, especially in the hands of these world-renowned Klezmorim (musicians).
Lisa Gutkin Grammy Award-winning violinist, singer, actor, and composer Lisa Gutkin is best known as a member of the acclaimed Klezmatics, and most recently for her musical score, performance, and music direction in the two time Tony award-winner, Indecent.
Lisa has had a storied career that reflects the eclectic nature of her life, passion, and creativity. A cameo performance in Sex and the City, a seat in Sting’s Broadway band for The Last Ship, a CD of original songs produced by John Lissauer, and scores for two of Pearl Gluck’s films have taken her a long way from her beginnings as back up musician to the Fast Folk songwriters’ collective.
Praised for her “hauntingly emotional” vocals by the L.A. Times, she has co-authored songs with Anne Sexton, Maggie Dubris, and Woody Guthrie. “Gonna Get Through This World”, co-written with Woody Guthrie, was described by Pete Seeger as “a piece of genius”.
In her ventures as soloist and bandleader, Lisa might swing seamlessly from Klezmer to the blues, or between traditional Irish and Appalachian sounds. She might even put the violin down altogether, pick up a tenor guitar, and sing one of her own universally resonant songs. Wherever she goes, Lisa has an uncanny way of taking the audience with her.
Lisa is a MacDowell and Norton Stevens Fellow plays one of the earliest Samuel Zygmuntowicz violins with one of the earliest Michael Yeats bows, carries her instrument in an Elipe case by Artonus, and uses an LR Baggs pick up system.
Matt Darriau has contributed to the Klezmatics’ music ever since they released their debut album, Shvaygn =Toyt (Silence = Death), in 1988, but it wasn’t until 1995 that he became an official member, just in time for their fourth release, Possessed. Matt’s full integration into the group was the culmination of a personal and musical journey that began back in Indiana, where he grew up “in an arty household where my father held international folk dance parties featuring Israeli, Balkan, Greek and Scandinavian dance music.” Although the elder Darriau came from French Catholic stock, “He loved and embraced Jewish and Eastern European culture,” says Matt.
Darriau, who describes himself as a “musical polyglot,” was a jazz fan first and foremost, but once he arrived in Boston, where he attended the New England Conservatory of Music’s Third Stream program, he began looking to world music for new inspiration. “We spent a lot of time in the international sections of used record stores and passed tapes along to each other,” he says. “It developed from there, with an intention of integrating improvisatory ideas with this music.”
Klezmer, Balkan and Celtic music all gave Matt the creative outlet he sought, and even today, when the Klezmatics take a break from their busy touring and recording schedule, Matt keeps himself sharp by playing Irish, Balkan, klezmer, and jazz and leads his own Balkan rhythm quartet, Paradox Trio. He has made music for dance, theatre, and film, including a recent commission from Chamber Music America for his Avant-swing band, Ballin’ the Jack. In addition to the Klezmatics, he has collaborated with Gunther Schuller, Elliott Sharp, Marc Ribot, George Schuller, Theodosii Spassov, Mark Feldman, and many others.
Some of Darriau’s other recent projects include Yo Lateef, a jazz quintet inspired by the music and legacy of Yusef Lateef, the Recycled Waltz Orchestra, and Disastro Totale with Yuri Lemeshev of Gogol Bordello and Celtic Eclectic, with its original take on Irish music featuring uilleann pipes player Ivan Goff. He has also recorded and performed with David Byrne, Marc Ribot, Roberto Rodriguez, Itzhak Perlman, Ken Butler, Ben Folds Five and many others in the New York and world scene.
Christina Crowder started playing Jewish music in Budapest, where she lived from 1993 to 2002. She is a founding member of Di Naye Kapelye—an ensemble dedicated to researching and performing traditional Eastern European Jewish music. The group did original research in Hungary and Romania and toured extensively in Europe. From 1999 to 2001, Christina and her husband John DeMetrick pursued Fulbright grants in Romania, working with elderly violinists who had played for Jewish communities before World War II. She continues this research with a project to document connections between klezmer, Moldavian and Greek music with Walter Zev Feldman at NYU Abu Dhabi, and she is the Operations Director of the newly-founded Klezmer Institute.
Christina lives in New Haven, Connecticut, where she performs with her chamber klezmer quartet Bivolița (Bee-vo-lee-tsa). She also performs regularly with Michael Winograd and the Honorable Mentschen, Alicia Svigals Klezmer Express, the Alexander Fiterstein Trio, the Goldenshtayn Kompaniye and the Dave Levitt Klezmer Trio. She has been a guest instructor in klezmer accordion and ensemble performance in the U.S., Canada and Europe.
Ilya Shneyveys is an international performer, accordionist and multi-instrumentalist, teacher, composer, arranger and producer of contemporary Jewish music, from klezmer and Yiddish folk song to fusion and experimental projects.
A founding member of Berlin’s famous Neukölln Klezmer Sessions and Shtetl Neukölln festival, as well as a long-time faculty member at Yiddish Summer Weimar, Ilya has performed and taught at major Jewish festivals around the world, including Yiddish Fest Moscow, Yiddish New York, Klezfest St.Petersburg, Klezfest London, KlezKanada, Montreal Jewish Festival, Toronto Ashkenaz Festival, Krakow Jewish Festival and more.
He is the artistic director and a founding member of the Yiddish psychedelic rock band Forshpil (LV-RU-DE) and a founding member of the Yiddish-Bavarian fusion project Alpen Klezmer (DE), winner of the 2014 RUTH World Music Award at TFF Rudolstadt. He is an artistic director of the German-Israeli student exchange project The Caravan Orchestra, for which he was awarded the 2017 Shimon-Peres-Prize. As a touring member of the klezmer-balkan band Dobranotch (RU) he has received the Eiserne Eversteiner Preis in 2017. He has performed and collaborated with such projects as Opa! (RU), The Klezmatics (US), Daniel Kahn, and the Painted Bird (DE), and many others.
Ilya composes contemporary traditional klezmer pieces and creates original arrangements of traditional Jewish music. He is renowned as an improviser, accompanist, and bandleader.
Originally from Riga, Latvia, Ilya has been traveling the world for the last 15 years promoting Yiddish music and culture. He is currently based in Brooklyn, NY.
David Licht was born in Detroit and raised in Greensboro, N.C. where he studied drums with jazz drummer Sam Anflick. He went to the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, N.Y. in 1978 and met Eugene Chadbourne, who along with keyboardist Mark Kramer became the legendary rock trio, Shockabilly. Licht moved to NYC in 1985 to help Kramer manage the recording studio, Noise NY, and they formed the band Bongwater. He met Frank London the first week he was in NYC and by the end of that year, the Klezmatics were formed. He also performed with Ned Rothenberg, John Zorn, and Tom Cora in the early ‘80s. Other collaborations include: composing for choreographer Karen Heifetz, and performing with Kapelye, Giora Feidman, David Krakauer's Klezmer Madness, and with a myriad of other Klezmer luminaries. These days Licht has become a touring musician part-time and spends more time with his family and works as a painter and plasterer, something he started back in 1974 in order to be able to play drums for a living!
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