Cornell University Klezmer Ensemble

The beloved klezmer music returns to the Morgan Opera House on Saturday, Nov. 18th at 7:30PM. Though the Klezmer Kings dissolved, many of them live on in CUKE! Cornell University Klezmer Ensemble. They will play several genres of klezmer music: American klezmer from New York and Philadelphia of the 1910s and 1920s; the repertoire of New York clarinetist Dave Tarras from the late 1930s to mid-1940s; and Russian (Ukraine/Belarus) klezmer from pre-revolutionary times. Led by Ryan Zawel, trombonist and past member of the Joel Rubin Jewish Music Ensemble and Klezmer Kings. CUKE is a student organization of Cornell University, but also includes staff and community members. True to klezmer tradition, they play an eclectic collection of instruments and will appear at MOH playing violins, viola, clarinet, mandolin, cello, trombone, sousaphone, piano, and drum set. Be prepared to enjoy the variety and vigor of their performance.

The concert is free but a donation of $10 to benefit the Morgan Opera House would be appreciated.

Klezmer was originally the ritual and celebratory music of the Yiddish-speaking Jews of Eastern Europe, where it developed over the course of many centuries. Brought to North America with the Jewish immigration wave from Russia and other Eastern European countries during the period 1881-1924, a modern klezmer tradition developed in the urban centers, particularly in New York City, although it subsequently went into a decline due to the forces of acculturation and assimilation. Since the 1970s, a dynamic revival of this tradition has been taking place. It has since become one of the most visible transnational music and culture movements involving many thousands of participants on five continents. The recent popularity of klezmer music has brought it far from its roots in medieval minstrel and Jewish ritual and into the sphere of mainstream culture, reaching as far as “Sex and the City.” It has inspired parallel developments in jazz/improvised music, such as the Radical Jewish Culture movement in New York’s Downtown Scene, as well as spawning a new genre of klezmer-influenced art music compositions by composers such as Golijov and Schoenfield.