Pete Rushefsky & the Ternovka Ensemble, Branford, CT, 13 Dec 2014
Branford Folk Music Society continues to celebrate its 40th season, presenting:
Pete Rushefsky & The Ternovka Ensemble
December 13, 2014, 8:00pm
Branford Folk Coffeehouse
First Congregational Church of Branford
1009 Main Street, Branford, CT.
Admission: $15 for nonmembers, $12 for members, $5 for kids 12 and under
Pay at the door.
Wheelchair accessible
For more information call 203-488-7715 (also to check on concert status/changes before leaving for the show)
folknotes.org/branfordfolk
Join us for a special Hanukkah concert and dance party with internationally renowned klezmer musician and composer Pete Rushefsky and his Ternovka Ensemble. In addition, Branford Folk's own renowned dance leader (and president) Willa Horowitz will teach dance steps at the end of the concert, turning the event into a rollicking party.
Pete Rushefsky (tsimbl/hammered dulcimer) and Jake Shulman-Ment (violin) are leading contemporary interpreters of the klezmer fidl and tsimbl (violin and hammered dulcimer) tradition. For hundreds of years, fidl and tsimbl, played in a duo format or as part of a small ensemble, formed the melodic and harmonic underpinning of Jewish music in Eastern Europe. With klezmer's transplantation to America, clarinets and jazz-influenced brass bands came to dominate the soundscape. However, since the 1970s there has been a growing revival of klezmer's string-based roots, and today musicians internationally are once again using fidl and tsimbl as a jumping-off point in the creation of contemporary Jewish music. Tonight they are joined by special guest Madeline Solomon on flute and Yiddish vocals.
Pete Rushefsky is a leading revivalist of the tsimbl (cimbalom), the traditional hammered dulcimer of klezmer music. He is one of a handful of contemporary klezmer musicians to use field and archival research in recreating a performance style for the instrument. Rushefsky is currently touring with violinist Itzhak Perlman in a program/recording titled "Eternal Echoes: Songs and Dances for the Soul," featuring the leading cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot, as well as klezmer revival legends Hankus Netsky and the Klezmer Conservatory Band. Additionally, Rushefsky serves as Executive Director of the Center for Traditional Music and Dance in New York City, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to preserving and nurturing the performing arts traditions of the city's immigrant communities. A popular instructor at camps internationally such as KlezKamp, KlezKanada and Yiddish Summer Weimar, Rushefsky is also the author of a pioneering instructional book on adapting the American 5-string banjo for klezmer. He is a well-known lecturer on klezmer and other traditional musics and has a number of published articles to his credit.
Jake Shulman-Ment is recognized internationally as both one of the leading performers of the klezmer violin tradition, as well as an innovator for his work in exploring the deep connection between klezmer and Moldavian muzica lautareasca (Romani/Gypsy music). In New York, Shulman-Ment worked with Center for Traditional Music and Dance to found the Tantshoyz (dance house) program. Modeled after the Hungarian tanchaz movement, the Tantshoyz works to revitalize the Yiddish dance tradition, and has been replicated in a number of cities in North America and Europe. Shulman-Ment was featured at the 2013 Smithsonian Folklife Festival as part of the An-sky Ensemble, and his critically-acclaimed album "A Redl (A Wheel)" was released on the German Oriente label.
Our special guest, Madeline Solomon, is a noted klezmer flute player and Yiddish vocalist performing internationally. Hailing from Manchester, England, she has toured the continent as part of the Solomon Sisters, a Yiddish cabaret act that marries British wit with the swinging harmonies of the Barry Sisters.
Solomon has performed at a number of leading festivals and concert halls in the UK, including the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Glastonbury Festival, Royal Albert Hall, and the Manchester Royal Exchange, and major venues around the continent.
Branford Folk Coffeehouse welcomes refreshment donations of pastries, cold drinks and other assorted goodies! Bring your own travel mug or thermos and take home any leftover coffee!
Branford Folk Music Society - Traditionally, the Best Folk Music in southern Connecticut since 1973