Photo by Pawel Mazur The Other Europeans’ impressive new live album, “Splendor,” should carry the subtitle “Everything You Wanted To Know About Klezmer and Lautar Music But Were Afraid To Ask.” Would you bet on your ability to differentiate klezmer from so-called “Gypsy” music in a simple drop-the-needle listening test? Before this recording, even those…
Canada is home to less than three percent of the world’s Jewish population, but every other year, Jewish artists from around the world congregate in Toronto for the Ashkenaz Festival, which returns this year from August 31 to September 6 at the city’s Harbourfront Centre. The festival was created in 1995 as a forum for…
Each year the KlezKanada Summer Institute, held for a week in August in the Laurentian mountains north of Montreal, reveals new surprises. This time around choreographer Steven Weintraub introduced a masquerade ball, so couples were dancing “Pas Despans” along with their bulgars and freilichs. Eight virtuoso musicians from The Other Europeans project, which examines Jewish…
It’s Passover time, and a heady mix of liberation, freedom and matzah fills the air. While we recount the tale of the Children of Israel’s escape from Egypt, a strange inversion of this story unfolds in France. In this nightmare exodus, the Israelite (a non-Jewish klezmer clarinetist) flees Egypt (Moldova) and makes it to the…
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