Christina Crowder – Accordion

Christina started playing Jewish music in Budapest, Hungary, where she lived from 1993 to 2002. She is a founding member of Di Naye Kapelye – an ensemble dedicated to researching and performing traditional eastern European Jewish music. The group did original research in Hungary and Romania and in the 8 years Christina performed with the ensemble, Di Naye Kapelye toured extensively in Europe and performed at numerous festivals including the Jewish Music Festival in Krakow, Poland, the Festival d’Ete in Nantes, France and many others.

From 1999 to 2001 Christina and her husband John DeMetrick pursued Fulbright grants in Romania, working with elderly violinists who had played music for Jewish communities before the Second World War. The pair made field recordings of those musicians and also pursued archival and library sources for Jewish material and an understanding of the local influences on Jewish musical styles. Christina continues this research with a project to document connections between Jewish, Bessarabian and Greek music through NYU Abu Dhabi. Christina currently lives in New Haven, Connecticut, where she works with local klezmer musicians and students. She also performs with the Alexander Fiterstein Trio, the Wholesale Klezmer Band, and the chamber klezmer quartet “Bivolița.” She has been a guest instructor in klezmer accordion and ensemble performance in Paris, Albuquerque, and Asheville, and performs regularly with the renowned klezmorim Margot Leverett, Alicia Svigals, and Walter Zev Feldman.