9.19.19 Opening Night Tanzhoyz – Alicia Svigals, Sarah Myerson, Lauren Brody, Jordan Hirsch, Aaron Alexander

All events will take place at The Town & Village Synagogue, Social Hall,  334 East 14th St.(between 1st & 2nd Ave.)

Klezmer Instrumental Music Workshop 6:30pm-8:00   $25 per class, 
Concerts & Dance Parties begin at 8:30pm – $15
Jam Session follows Concert 9:45-10:45ish
Full night pass – $35 (includes Workshop, Concert & Jam Session)

Sept. 19, 2019 – Our Fall 2019 Opening Night Tanzhoyz featuring Alicia Svigals on violin, Sarah Myerson leading dance, Lauren Brody on Accordion, Jordan Hirsch on trumpet, and Aaron Alexander on drums.

Alicia Svigals, violinist/composer and a founder of the Grammy-winning Klezmatics, is the world’s foremost klezmer fiddler. Alicia almost singlehandedly revived the tradition of klezmer fiddling, which had been on the brink of extinction until she recorded her debut album Fidl in the 1990’s. In February 2018, Svigals and jazz pianist Uli Geissendoerfer released her newest album, Beregovski Suite, a fantasy on klezmer melodies culled from the archive of early 20th century Soviet Jewish ethnomusicologist Moshe Beregovski.Svigals is also a composer who works in many genres. She was an NEA MacDowell Fellow in 2014, an honor for first-time fellows of “extraordinary talent.” She is the recipient of the Foundation for Jewish Culture’s 2013 New Jewish Culture Network commission for her new live score to the 1918 Pola Negri silent film The Yellow Ticket, which she tours internationally with pianist Marilyn Lerner, and was commissioned to create an expanded version of the score for the Seattle Symphony’s clarinetist Laura DeLuca, premiering in May 2014. She was fellow at LABA: a Laboratory of New Jewish Culture in 2014, where she studied Jewish texts with a multidisciplinary group of fellows and wrote a song cycle for soprano, violin and accordion drawn from that experience. In June 2018, Flicker Alley released her score to the 1923 silent film Das Alte Gesetz, co-written with pianist Donald Sosin, which they are touring internationally.
Sarah Myerson is a cantor actively working to bridge the worlds of Yiddish culture and Jewish religion. Her love of klezmer music and background in folk dance has drawn her to study Yiddish dance intensively at festivals and workshops. She has led Yiddish social dancing for simkhes, tantshayzer (dance parties), concerts and at festivals, and has taught workshops since 2008 in Europe, Israel, Canada, the USA and Australia. Yiddish dancing is great fun, especially with fabulous live musicians! We’ll work, as dancers, on listening to the music and expressing what we hear through our bodies, and hopefully our dancing will inspire the musicians as well. Symbiotic creation, art forms influences each other. Cantor Myerson is also Asst. Director of the NY Klezmer Series.
Lauren Brody is an internationally renowned  accordionist, singer, and researcher as well as a professional piano tuner/technician from New York.  She is a pioneer of the klezmer music revival in the United States and a founding member of the groundbreaking band “Kapelye”, formed in 1979.  She has toured extensively, and recorded and appeared on film and television with Kapelye, with the all-female ensemble “Mikveh”. Lauren has played regularly at concerts and festivals with musicians and singers in the klezmer music world such as The Klezmatics, Andy Statman, Michael Winograd, David Krakauer, Alicia Svigals, Frank London, Merlin and Polina Shepherd and others.  She has had a similarly pivotal role in the Balkan music scene in the United States, both as a teacher and as a performer.
Jordan Hirsch is one of the first call bandleaders for Jewish Music – Klezmer, Chasidic – for over 30 years. Jordan is lead trumpet player for the show Fiddler Afn Dakh. He was a top bandleader for Neshama Orchestra for over two decades, he is a member of Klezmerfest, Funk Shui, The Kleztraphobix, and has played with just about everyone who’s anyone in New York’s Jewish Music scene. He has taught at Klez Kanada and Yiddish New York among other places. He attended Brooklyn College and Yeshiva University.

Aaron Alexander is a co-founder of the NY Klezmer Series. He has released CDs of his original klezmer and jazz music, including Midrash Mish Mosh, Blues for Sparky, and traditional klezmer music, including The Klez Messengers. He has performed with notables including Theodore Bikel, The Klezmer Conservatory Band w/Itzhak Perlman, The Klezmatics, Michael Alpert, Alicia Svigals, Greg Wall, Frank London’s Klezmer Brass All-Stars, Klezmerfest, and more.. www.aaronalexander.com