The Alexandria Kleztet will be in the Park on August 24. Ithas won Washington Area Music Awards for World Music Duo or Group, World Music Instrumentalist, Jazz Instrumentalist and World Music Recording, for a total of 15 “Wammies.” Featuring Seth Kibel on clarinet/saxophone with violinist Susan Jones, bassist Scott Harlan and drummer Tim Jarvis.
Fountain Park – High Street
Saturday, 24 August 7:00 – 8:30 PM
Free
Marge Fallaw says
This is a concert not to be missed!
Back when I was volunteer manager of Music in the Park (from its founding in 1995 through 2007), after a number of years I decided to expand the series offerings beyond the more usual musical genres for public outdoor concerts. Luckily, at about that time the Kleztet’s leader and energetic MC (Seth Kibel) contacted me to inquire about performing, and after listening to the several Kleztet CDs he sent (now among my favorites) and checking out the group on the Web, I concluded that the Kleztet, with its excellent musicianship and creativity, would be a “winner” and promptly booked them for the 2006 season. Their reception here was gratifying, though many in the audience who enjoyed the program said they’d never heard of klezmer music before (though they actually might have without realizing it if they’d ever heard the music from the musical “Fiddler on the Roof”).
Since information about the group and its music is a little sparse on this Spy page (with klezmer music not even mentioned or explained!), I will copy and paste below an excerpt from my 2006 press release. For additional information and details about the upcoming Aug. 24 concert specifically, also see Peter Heck’s fine piece in this week’s Kent County News (2nd section, p. 1).
Two other bits:
1) CDs by the group will be available/for sale at the concert.
2) I urge monetary support of Music in the Park in order to keep these concerts available and admission-free for all. Donations can be made at concerts or by taking or sending an earmarked check to the town hall (118 N. Cross St., C’town); checks should be made out to the Town of Chestertown. During my years as manager, at least, about 80% of the cost of presenting the series had to come from donations.
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From 2006 press release:
Klezmer, which literally means “tool of song” in Hebrew, is the secular folk music of the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. In the first decades of the 1900s, this music flourished not only in the Old World but also in the New, especially in the immigrant community of New York City. There, the sometimes festive, sometimes poignant sounds of the European “fiddler on the roof” mixed with the sounds of early jazz and Tin Pan Alley. The result was a quintessentially American sound.
However, for decades, the music faced extinction. Genocide in Europe eliminated much of the cultural source for klezmer, while in this country the children of first-generation immigrants sought to forget the old ways of their parents and to become fully assimilated into American culture.
It was not until the 1970s that a small group of musicians and ethnomusicologists began to study and re-learn the old songs and melodies. Now, several decades later, the klezmer revival is in full swing, with dozens of bands across the nation. Some faithfully recreate the traditional sounds of the past, and some—like the Alexandria Kleztet—also push the boundaries of the music by incorporating modern influences from jazz, rock, and other musical genres.
Over the past eight years, the Kleztet, based in the Washington-Baltimore area, has developed its own innovative “alternative klezmer” sound, under the leadership of Seth Kibel, a highly skilled and versatile clarinetist, saxophonist, flutist, and composer. The program will include some of his compositions. At its annual awards ceremony in February [2006], the Washington Area Music Association (WAMA) named him the year’s top instrumentalist in both the jazz and world music categories. The Kleztet’s most recent CD, “Close Enough for Klezmer,” was also voted the best world music album. The group’s first album, “Y2Klezmer,” and second album, “Delusions of Klezmer,” won the same award in 2000 and 2002, respectively.