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Daniel Kahn, voice
Detroit-born, Berlin-based since 2005, fronts the punk-folk-klezmer band The Painted Bird, and is a founding member of The Unternationale, The Brothers Nazaroff, The Disorientalists, Strangelovesongs, and Semer Ensemble. He tours the world as a singer, songwriter, translator, teacher, and theatre artist. At Berlin's Maxim Gorki Theater he has worked as director/playwright, composer/actor, and music curator. |
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Emil Goldschmidt, clarinet
Clarinettist, composer and band-leader. Born in 1983 he started playing drums at an age of 8, but soon fell in love with the woodwinds. When he was 9 years old, he was admitted in The Tivoli Boys Guard on the clarinet, where he took his first steps in his professional career. Emil Goldschmidt is trained in both classical music and in jazz/pop, but the old recordings of the Jewish masters, David Tarras, Shloimke Beckerman and Naftule Brandwein, showed him his musical path. He quickly discovered his own voice in Jewish music leading him to establish Mames Babegenush. Rooted in East European Jewish dance music Mames Babegenush has dazzled both audience and critics all over the world. |
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Craig Judelman, violin
Craig Judelman grew up in Seattle, where he started playing the violin at age 4. He studied classical music until university, earning a degree in music form Bard College in New York, but became interested in folk music much earlier, learning his first klezmer tunes after seeing a band at a bar mitzve. After spending much time studying and performing American folk music, and performing klezmer only for weddings and bar mitzves, he began to focus on it more after joining the Brooklyn based band Litvakus, and has since performed at festivals around North America and Europe, with them as well as his new project Goyfriend, a collaboration between Sasha Lurje and Litvakus. |
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Sasha Lurje, voice
Sasha Lurje was born in Riga, Latvia, and has been singing since she was three years old. She has gained experience with many groups and in various styles including classical and folk singing, jazz, rock, and pop. Parallel to her singing career she has also been involved in several theater groups where she focused on musical and improvised theater. Since 2003 she has been researching traditional Yiddish singing style and repertoire, investigating secular and religious vocal materials. |
Sanne Möricke, accordion
is a highly sought after klezmer accordionist. She studied ethnomusicology, then took up accordion studies and specialized in Yiddish instrumental music. In the course of time she played in several klezmer ensembles with different line-ups and styles. Currently she's playing with Klezgoyim, Trio Yas, and You Shouldn't Know From It. She has taught and performed at many international festivals and seminars from Friesland to New York and has performed with numerous international artists, such as Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars (USA), Yanky Lemmer (USA), and Ciğdem Aslan (TR). She lives in Berlin. "Sanne's accordion is nothing to sneeze at..." - Ari Davidow, Klezmershack |
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Ilya Sheyveys, accordion
is an artist and educator in Jewish music, from klezmer and Yiddish folk song to fusion and experimental projects. He is the artistic director and a founding member of the Yiddish psychedelic rock band Forshpil (Latvia-Russia-Germany) and a founding member of the Yiddish-Bavarian fusion project Alpen Klezmer (D), winner of 2014 RUTH World music award at TFF Rudolstadt. He frequently performs with Dobranotch (RU) and has collaborated with artists such as Opa! (RU), The Klezmatics (US), Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird (D) and others. Hampus Melin, drums
is a Swedish drummer and teacher specialized in jazz, Klezmer and theater music. Since 2005 living in Berlin. He plays Yiddish music with Daniel Kahn & The Painted Bird, The Brothers Nazaroff, You Shouldn’t Know From It (amongst others) and is regularly on tour in both Europe and North America. He has worked at the Royal Theater Copenhagen, the Gorki Theater Berlin and frequently appears with local Berlin jazz bands like Goodnight Circus and Insomnia Brass Band. Hampus Melin is also a founding member of the Neukölln Klezmer Sessions and Shtetl Neukölln Yiddish Festival. |
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Sayumi Yoshida, dance
She has lived in Berlin since 1987. She is a freelance graphic designer. Following her studies at the Hochschule der Kunste Berlin (today UdK) she worked as a freelance artist in diverse performances, sound and site installations. She first learned Yiddish dance in 1989 with Michael Alpert and Brave Old World. She has also studied with Zev Feldman, Sue Foy, Erik Bendix, Steven Weintraub and Andreas Schmitges, among others. She has led workshops in Yiddish dance in Japan at Osaka University and fort the Japanese-Jewish Friendship and Study Society in Kobe. Since 2016 she has also led "Yiddish Dance for Instrumentalists" at "Yiddish Autumn Tokyo (YAT)." |
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Patrick Farrell, accordion
Patrick Farrell is an accordionist, composer and bandleader from the USA, currently based in Berlin, Germany. Called a player of “mordant wit and blistering speed” by NY Music Daily, he is consistently involved in many different musical worlds and genres. His current projects include new Yiddish song duets with Berlin-based soprano Sveta Kundish, the Yiddish Art Trio with Michael Winograd and Benjy Fox-Rosen, unique and unusual duets with trumpeter Ben Holmes, and chamber-folk ensemble Ljova and the Kontraband. He plays in Frank London's Klezmer Brass All-Stars and Alicia Svigals' Klezmer Fiddle Express, and has also worked as a composer, music director and accompanist for various theater and dance ensembles. Farrell has appeared on dozens of recordings, including with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, Adrienne Cooper, and Never Enough Hope. He has studied accordion in Macedonia, Serbia, Germany and Romania, and has played in clubs, concert halls, streets, and serenades all over North America and Europe. He can be found at www.pattysounds.com Susi Evans, clarinet
Susi “has a deep knowledge of the klezmer idiom” (Evening Standard), and her performances have inspired press reviews remarking on her “nimble solo features and excellent tone control” (The Scottish Herald). Susi is a founder member of She’Koyokh, the London-based klezmer & Balkan group who were winners of the 2008 International Jewish Music Festival prize (Holland) and shortlisted for Best Group in the Songlines World Music Awards 2012. Susi also co-founded the London Klezmer Quartet who have toured in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Brazil and released four studio albums. She appeared regularly on the West End stage in the National Theatre’s smash-hit production of War Horse and has collaborated with the Aurora Orchestra, composer Jocelyn Pook, the Mahogany Opera Group and Limbik Theatre. Susi graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in 2004 and continued her studies in Istanbul with Selim Sesler, with Nikola Iliev at the Plovdiv Academy of Music and with leaders of the klezmer revival. She is now in demand as a teacher herself and has been on the faculty for KlezNorth, Klezfest London and Yiddish Summer Weimar. In 2017 Susi received an ARAM (Associate of the Royal Academy of Music), awarded to former students who have made a significant contribution to the music profession. Photo: Savannah Photgraphic |