MATT DARRIAU (kaval, clarinet, saxophone)
Matt has been playing Irish, Balkan, klezmer and jazz music with Frank, Lisa and most of the band for the past 23 years. He leads his own Balkan rhythm quartet, Paradox Trio whose fourth CD, Gambit (ENJA Records, Munich) is soon to be released in the U.S. He has made music for dance, theater, and film including a recent commission from Chamber Music America for his avant-swing band, Ballin’ The Jack. More at mattdarriau.com

LISA GUTKIN (violin, vocals)
Lisa's varied musical palette has led to collaborations with a wide array of artists, the founding of the ‘Downtown Celtic’ group, Whirligig, and to her joining The Klezmatics. Having appeared on over 100 recordings, Lisa also composes for film, radio, television and theater. Her most recent compositions can be heard on episodes of Sex & The City’s final season, in addition to her cameo on-screen appearance on the show (with The Klezmatics). Lisa has performed and recorded with some of the best traditional Irish musicians: Tommy Sands, John Whelan, Steve Cooney, and Cathie Ryan.
As part of the Fast Folk collective, she appeared with The Roches, Shawn Colvin, Suzanne Vega, and Richard Shindell, to name a few. She has worked with Pete Seeger, Jane Siberry, John Cale & Bob Newirth with the Soldier String Quartet, and contemporary R&B artist Pru, and her theater credits include Mabou Mines’ Peter & Wendy, Song of Songs by Elizabeth Swados, and Dragon Productions’ Seeing Is Believing with Dutch choreographer Maggie Boogaart for which she composed and performed the music. Lisa can be heard occasionally with The Demolition String Band in their Ola Belle Reed project, with Pamela Wyn Shannon and with Lisa’s Pieces (a bluegrassy band featuring her original compositions). Lisa’s latest project was a composing commission for Song For New York: What Women Do While Men Sit Knitting, a Mabou Mines production performed in the summer of 2007, and a stay at MacDowell Artist Colony in January 2009. More about her at lisagutkin.com

FRANK LONDON (trumpet, keyboards)
Frank's Klezmer Brass Allstars' CD Carnival Conspiracy just got awarded the German Grammy and is “Top of the World” in Songlines; on Hazonos he explores cantorial music with Cantor Jacob Mendelson; he has completed two commissions for Carnegie Hall, an artist-in-residency in Krems, Austria, a new work for David Dorfman Dance at the Joyce Theater; and is in the middle of four theater works, including “Once There Was A Village” for Lincoln Center and LaMama.

PAUL MORRISSETT (bass, tsimbl)
A collector and player of instruments of Eastern Europe and Scandinavia and has studied with many masters of these traditions. He has recorded and performed on instruments including hardanger fiddle, violin, nyckelharpa, gadulka, baritone horn, accordion and tamburitza, and has been on the staff of numerous music camps including Fiddles and Feet, Lark in the Morning, Buffalo on the Roof, Ashokan Northern Week and Balkan Music & Dance.

LORIN SKLAMBERG (lead vocals, accordion, guitar, piano)
Lorin can be heard on some 50 CDs, and regularly works together in ongoing and varied collaborations with his bandmates and many of this milestone concert's extraordinary guest artists. He composes and performs for film, dance, stage and circus, produces recordings, and teaches and lectures from London and Paris to Kiev and St. Petersburg. By day he works as the Sound Archivist for the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

RICHIE BARSHAY (percussion)
Richie, most noted as a member of the Herbie Hancock Quartet since 2003, has established himself as a prominent musical voice of his generation. Regarded as “a player to watch” by JazzTimes magazine, he maintains a busy international schedule with some of today's top artists including Hancock, The Klezmatics, Kenny Werner and Chick Corea among others. In September of 2004 he was named an American Musical Envoy by the U.S. State Department, along with the renowned Latin-Jazz ensemble Insight. Now based in New York City after 5 years on the Boston music scene, Richie began playing Jazz and Afro-Latin music during his youth and has expanded his focus to Indian rhythmic concepts and tabla, inspiring his 2005 recording debut Homework and the launching of his new band, The Richie Barshay Project. More about him at richiebarshay.comIt's easy to chalk up the birth of the Klezmatics to randomness: five people from different musical and geographical backgrounds, all recently arrived in Manhattan, answer an ad in the Village Voice looking for anyone interested in forming a klezmer band. Then again, maybe the future Klezmatics were simply following a historical imperative, as klezmer is the music of the Jewish Diaspora; music that sprung forth between connected strangers in a new land.

What's perhaps even more unlikely than their incarnation is that the band remains not only intact — five of the six current members appeared on the first Klezmatics record — but also vital. Seventeen years after their first album, they continue to evolve, while still drawing sustenance from the traditional music that first drew them together.

Whether the Klezmatics are a product of happenstance or historical imperative, their early success was certainly marked by good fortune. In 1988, they were mainly playing clubs and parties in New York. Through the influence of Ben Mandelson of 3 Mustaphas 3, they were invited to play at the first annual Heimatklänge Festival in Berlin—a proto-world music gathering held just as world music was emerging in the global consciousness. The band played every night. At the end of the week, the festival's organizers, who had recently formed a label called Piranha, offered them a record deal. An album, Shvaygn = Toyt (Piranha/Rounder, 1988), Yiddish for Silence = Death, was recorded, live, at Radio Free Berlin (SFB). Just like that, the Klezmatics had a record company, and a future.

Musically, the band hadn't quite found their identity. They did, however, tap sources no other klezmer act had thought to emulate: the small American klezmer bands of the '30s and '40s. They were also beginning to formulate their guiding thematic approach to music and life-seamlessly melding cultural statement (that Yiddish must be spoken, or else disappear) with historical politics (the ardent socialist anthems of their forebears) and modern activism, particularly a joyous affirmation of human rights.

Another minor miracle followed the Piranha record deal. Piranha's director, Christoph Borkowsky Akbar, actually encouraged the band to take their time recording their second album. Borkowsky wanted the Klezmatics to find their own path and organically blend their many influences. Klezmer was the lifeblood, but the band also mined the multi-ethnic and cultural influences of New York. Mixing together Jewish drinking songs, socialism and Jewish mysticism, as well as punk, jazz and classical attitudes seemed strangely natural — as did maintaining their reputation as an ecstatic party band. This extended recording period allowed the Klezmatics to forge their own unique musical identity.

By the time they'd finished their follow-up, in 1990, the band was ready to break away from anything resembling predictability. They stated their intentions in the album's title, Rhythm + Jews (Piranha/Rounder, 1990). Jewish music had always been thought of purely as melody; the Klezmatics felt the true backbone was rhythm, challenging the supremacy of sobbing clarinets, violins and voices. This was also the first time "Jew" appeared on the cover of a klezmer album. By using the word, the band was boldly asserting their own brand of cultural pride: Jew Positive, a non-exclusionary belief that to find common ground with other traditions, they first had to unabashedly embrace their own.

Like any great punk album, Rhythm + Jews thrived on energy. The band brought in non-klezmer musicians like the Nubian percussionist Mahmoud Fadl, taking their source material to wildly divergent destinations. They played Eastern European melodies over Arabic and African rhythms; introduced their trademark multi-part group vocal sound (a tribute to British folk-rock pioneers Steeleye Span); and incorporated classical music’s bass clarinet into their already multitudinous palate of sounds. They also began testing the waters of writing their own music with a whirling, homoerotic interpretation of the love poetry of King David. In a pattern that would perpetually repeat itself, the Klezmatics showed that, while they would always view the world through the lens of Eastern European Jewish identity, they would not be fetishistic about it.

The Klezmatics next album, Jews With Horns (Piranha/Rounder, 1995), didn’t just venture into new territory; it set up a carnival tent and invited the new world's strangest denizens to participate in the delirium. The album included the breakneck, punk-fueled “Man in a Hat” (the band’s first song in English), a Hasidic-style wordless chant and a stark, minimalist treatment of 20th century Yiddish poetry. Musical guests included electric guitarist Marc Ribot (Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, The Lounge Lizards), Canadian political folkies Moxy Früvous and New York theatrical girl rock band BETTY. “Man in a Hat” was nominated for a GLAMA (Gay and Lesbian Music Award)-an honor they would actually receive a few years later.

In 1994 the Klezmatics marked the beginning of their fruitful collaboration between seemingly unrelated artists and milieus by pulling out of the archives a century-old socialist anthem called "In kamf" (In Struggle) for the soundtrack of the AIDS epidemic documentary “Fast Trip Long Drop” (Sundance Grand Jury Prize nominee), about a gay Jewish mans struggle with the disease. They put in a modern arrangement, while strengthening the link to the composition's roots with a chorus of native Yiddish-speaking seniors, who had sung the song in their own politically active youth.

In 1995, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tony Kushner (Angels in America) furthered the Klezmatics' collaborations when he asked the band to pen the score for his adaptation of S. Ansky’s The Dybbuk, the classic Yiddish folk drama of ghostly possession. Those compositions formed the bulk of the next album, Possessed (Piranha/Rounder, 1997). Kushner also wrote the powerful Possessed CD liner notes. The band was joined on the CD by John Medeski of Medeski, Martin and Wood, among others.

The Klezmatics next had the honor of working with renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman, who requested that the Klezmatics join him and three other klezmer bands to record an album called In The Fiddler's House (Angel/EMI, 1995). This album and ensuing tour dramatically raised the awareness of klezmer music in the United States. As the ultimate compliment, Perlman selected six original Klezmatics compositions for inclusion on the CDs and live concerts.

The Klezmatics then paired with Israeli singer Chava Alberstein, an artist who, in Israel, has a reputation as vaunted as Perlman's. Alberstein brought the band fifteen Yiddish poems set to music. The band then created striking arrangements to frame the voices of Alberstein and Sklamberg. For Alberstein, it was a return to her mother tongue, and the first time she had recorded in Yiddish in eleven years. It was also an act of bravery, given the tenuous existence of Yiddish in Israel.

The resulting album, The Well (Rounder, 1998), was produced by k.d. lang collaborator Ben Mink, who also played on the recording. It remains one of the band's favorites, not just for the music, but for the opportunity to help an artist they admire achieve a personal triumph. The Well is one of the band’s (and Ms. Alberstein’s) most popular and beloved recordings and received rave international reviews.

The collaborations had proven a point: despite the relatively obscure origins of their music, the Klezmatics were citizens of the modern acoustic world, and fully capable of lending their talents to any number of artistic forms. Their next album, Rise Up! Shteyt oyf (Rounder, 2002), was their first non-collaborative album in years. The album also featured a new permanent member, violinist Lisa Gutkin.

The tone of the record harkened back to Jews With Horns, with politics, religion, ecstasy and partying each vying for space, often within the same song. Some of the songs on Rise Up! had originally been commissioned for the band’s collaboration with the innovative American dance company Pilobolus Dance Theatre. 9/11 also affected aspects of the recording, particularly in their bilingual cover of the Holly Near song “I Ain’t Afraid,” later rousingly performed onstage with musical heroes Near and Ronnie Gilbert of the Weavers.

The band's intention at this point was to push forward with their own music, but another chance meeting would redefine their immediate future. A few years prior, after playing a concert with Perlman, they were introduced to Nora Guthrie—known to most of the world as Woody's daughter and Arlo's sister. The band, however, recognized her as the granddaughter of Aliza Greenblatt, an influential Yiddish poet who had lived in Coney Island and the mother of Guthrie's Jewish wife. At the time, Guthrie didn't recognize the importance of her grandmother to appreciators of the Yiddish language and culture. She did, however, know that her father had written a collection of Jewish songs, which she invited the band to record in much the same manner as the Billy Bragg and Wilco collections (Mermaid Avenue I & II).

Beginning in 2003, the band performed the music in a series of concerts, including a Thanksgiving celebration at Carnegie Hall, under the title "Holy Ground". They also self-produced eight of Woody's Hanuka songs, which resulted in an album called Woody Guthrie's Happy Joyous Hanukkah. An album of Guthrie-penned Jewish Brooklyn Americana is planned for the near future.

In 2004, Piranha invited the Klezmatics back to the Heimatklänge festival, a double invite rarely extended to performers. The show's theme that year was New York, a theme fittingly embodied by the band. At Heimatklänge, the band performed with jazz vocalist/organist Kathryn Farmer, as well as Joshua Nelson, an African American Jew practitioner of “Kosher Gospel” who was brought up on gospel icon and collaborative superstar Mahalia Jackson. They performed a series of shows, one night of which resulted in their first live audience album, Brother Moses Smote The Water (Harmonia Mundi, 2004), featuring contributions by Nelson and Farmer.

Brother Moses spoke to every aspect of Klezmatics philosophy. It was undoubtedly a Jewish offering — half of the songs concerned Passover. It also contained two audience favorites: the socialist anthem "Ale brider" ("All United") and “Shnirele, perele”, a Hasidic ode to the eternal Jewish yearning for the coming of the messianic era. Not surprisingly, other influences naturally asserted themselves, notably with "Old Testament"-based gospel tunes like "Didn't It Rain" and "Oh, Mary Don’t You Weep".

The Klezmatics' powerfully diverse collaborative repertoire stands as a testament to their ability to broaden the definition of the term world music. They radically dispel the notion of pigeonholing music. The Klezmatics have made a career out of breaking down musical barriers, fully embracing klezmer and their Jewishness, while using these same essential spiritual, historical, and cultural foundations as a springboard to ambitious new musical hybrids.

Awards & Accolades
GRAMMY® Award — Best Contemporary World Music Album — for Wonder Wheel (2006)
Preis der Deutsches Schallplattenkritik (German Critics' Award)
GLAMA (Gay and Lesbian American Music Award) — for The Well with Israeli folk singer Chava Alberstein (1998)
Top 10 Billboard Magazine World Music chart
Top 10 European World Music chart
Top 10 College Music Journal chart
Musical Collaborations
Classical icon Itzhak Perlman
American folk singer Arlo Guthrie
Israeli singer Chava Alberstein
Israeli singer Ehud Banai
Kosher Gospel African-American Jewish singer Joshua Nelson
Jazz singer/organist Kathryn Farmer
Avant-garde jazz keyboardist/vocalist Amina Claudine Myers
Singer-guitarist Raul MidÃ
The Master Musicians of Jajouka
NYC avant-rockers Elliot Sharp, Marc Ribot and John Zorn
Philadelphia jazz statesmen Bootsy Barnes and Sam Dockery
Folk icon Theodore Bikel (co-founder of the Newport Folk Festival)
Members of the Flying Karamazov Brothers
Ben Folds Five's Whatever & Ever Amen, Steven's Last Night in Town (SONY/550)
Nubian Egyptian percussionist Mahmoud Fadl
Beat Poet Allen Ginsberg
Poet Jerome Rothenberg
John Medeski (of Medeski, Martin & Wood)
Canadian political folk band Moxy Früvous
Pop music icon Neil Sedaka
New York City cult girl group BETTY
Theatre Collaborations
Score for Pulitzer Prize winning author Tony Kushner's (Angels in America) adaptation of the classic Yiddish drama “A Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds” (New York Public Theater, Hartford Stage)
Composed/performed music for Kushner's work-in-progress “It's An Undoing World, or Why Should It Be Easy When It Can Be Hard” at its premiere at Los Angeles' John Anson Ford Theater
Acclaimed performance piece “The Third Seder” (a multi-media Passover extravaganza featuring the Klezmatics and other cutting edge New York Jewish artists) staged at New York's Jewish Museum and La Mama Theater
Film Collaborations
Jonathan Berman, “The Shvitz”
Gregg Bordowitz, “Fast Trip, Long Drop”
Judith Helfand, A Healthy Baby Girl, broadcast on PBS television series “P.O.V.”
Dance Collaborations
Score for the Pilobolus Dance Theatre's Davenen (premiered at Washington, DC's Kennedy Center and continues tbe shown internationally)
Provided music for new work by choreographer Twyla Tharp in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Martha Graham's birth
Notable Performances
Cross-cultural project and Central Park Summerstage performances with the Master Musicians of Jajouka (a 4000-year old Moroccan ensemble known as the world's oldest rock and roll band)
Sold-out performances in Paris, London, Berlin, Stockholm, Helsinki, Prague, New York, Washington DC and Los Angeles with Chava Alberstein
First annual Heimatklänge Festival (1988)
Sold out Carnegie Hall performance with Arlo Guthrie
Sold out Carnegie Hall performance with Neil Sedaka
Concert at Berlin's historic New Synagogue with Israeli singer Chava Alberstein and Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul and Mary), Summer 2001
Tanglewood and Ravinia with Itzhak Perlman
TV Shows
PBS Emmy-Award winning special “Great Performances: In the Fiddler's House” with Itzhak Perlman
CBS's “Late Night with David Letterman”
CBS's “Nightwatch”
Fox's “After Breakfast”
BBC's “Rhythms of the World”
MTV News
Original Klezmatics score for a cartoon narrated by comedian Jackie Mason on talk show host Rosie O'Donnell's TV special “Kids Are Punny”
Nickelodeon television jingle: Klezmatics version of the jingle animated and broadcast in regular rotation
PBS's internationally aired Voices: A Musical Celebration, with Israeli singer Chava Alberstein and Peter Yarrow
HBO's “Sex and the City” — on-screen appearance as Charlotte's wedding band
Radio
BBC's John Peel Show
Regularly featured on National Public Radio's (NPR) New Sounds and New Sounds Live, both with host John Schaefer
Regular guests on NPR's Soundcheck
Regular guest spots on NPR's A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor
WV Public Radio's Mountain Stage, broadcast nationally
Miscellaneous
Two Yiddish dance standards recorded with klezmer clarinet legend Ray Musiker for Ellipsis Arts disc Klezmer Music: A Marriage of Heaven and Earth
Two remixes on the Shanachie cd collection Klezmania: Klezmer for the New Millennium
Mash-up of ska rhythms for a cover of “Dthe Ska (KlezSkaLypso)” on the Skatalites tribute CD Freedom Sounds (Shanachie)
Collaboration with actor/clown Bill Irwin on I Do! Me Too, a CD benefiting the restoration of the oldest US church organ at New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine
Featured on two of the Knitting Factory's Jewzapalooza/Klezmer Festival CDs, including a collaboration with Anthony Coleman and poet Aloll Trehorn on “Ode to Karl Marx”
Previously unreleased track included on the Six Degrees CD compilation Festival of Light
In the Fiddler's House (the Itzhak Perlman CD on which he plays original Klezmatics arrangements and compositions and shares writing credit with the band) has topped world and classical music charts internationally and became one of the top selling folk recordings of the past decade. Live in the Fiddler's House, a second album, was recorded at Radio City Music Hall.