Klezmer Reawakened
New music from old manuscripts

Klezmer from the New World
The repertoire of 'king of klezmer' Dave Tarras

NEW programme & CD 2023

 Old Yiddish melodies ring out in wonderful, lively new arrangements of wedding and festival music from Eastern Europe that was thought to be lost and has not been heard or played for over 100 years - until today!

Susi Evans and Szilvia Csaranko explore a remarkable treasure trove of historic klezmer music that was collected between 1912 and 1914 during ethnographic field research trips in Ukraine and Belarus.

They invite their audience on a fascinating journey into a world of almost forgotten Klezmer music. The tunes, sometimes overflowing with joy, sometimes deeply moving and melancholic, are carefully arranged and excellently performed by two extraordinary musicians with a deep understanding of this style.

The An-ski expedition, joined by Russian-Jewish ethnomusicologist Susman Kieselgof, had set itself the task of collecting Jewish instrumental music and folk songs. Then came the First World War and the other tragic events of the 20th century. All this time the manuscripts were thought to be lost, until recently - miraculously - they were discovered in the Vernadsky National Library in Kiev.

The archive contains handwritten manuscripts of over 1400 melodies - that’s four times the number in the Moshe Beregovski collection ‘Jewish Instrumental Folk Music’, which was the biggest source to date. Included are treasures such as the extensive wedding repertoire of Makonovetsky and the personal notebook of Motl Reyder, a 70-year-old professional klezmer violinist from Dubno.

There are core Yiddish dances such as freylekhs and bulgars, but also many cosmopolitan ‘dances of the day’ such as polkas, mazurkas, waltzes and marches which would all have been part of the Jewish wedding musician’s repertoire.

Some tunes are already familiar to the klezmer community, recorded by immigrant musicians in the USA such as Naftule Brandwein and Dave Tarras. But most are completely new, surprising and special, and an exciting addition to the klezmer repertoire that survives today.

Susi Evans – clarinet (London/UK) – www.susievans.com

Szilvia Csaranko – accordion & piano (Hannover/D) – www.szilviacsaranko.de

The Kiselgof-Makonovetsky Digital Manuscript Project (KMDMP), a commons community project led by the Klezmer Institute in New York, is in the process of digitizing these manuscripts.
https://klezmerinstitute.org/kmdmp/

Our new album "Fun an Altn Klezmer Heft – Beautiful Music from Old Manuscripts" is a double-cd with 44 wonderful melodies from the Kiselgof-Makonovetsky collection, available as physical copy or as digital download here.

Susi Evans (clarinet) and Szilvia Csaranko (accordion & piano) are two exceptional musicians who are passionate about the tradition of klezmer music. They give concerts and teach in various projects worldwide.

Their program Klezmer from the New World is a selection of tunes from the repertoire of the legendary klezmer clarinettist Dave Tarras (1897-1989). Born in Ukraine, he migrated to New York in the 1920s and created a whole new American sound in Yiddish music by combining the traditional wedding music of the old world of Bessarabia with swing and other popular western styles of music. In the course of his life he played at thousands of Jewish weddings, made 500 sound recordings and was hailed “the Benny Goodman of klezmer”.

Like Dave Tarras himself, Susi & Szilvia embark on a journey through different cultures and genres that have always influenced klezmer music. From Tarras’ extensive and varied repertoire they have selected the most beautiful, interesting and lesser-known pieces of Yiddish wedding music, theater music and Greek, Polish, Russian, Rumanian and Moldovan tunes.

Tarras set high standards of virtuosity and musicality and Susi & Szilvia settle for nothing less with their impressive conservatoire technique, innate sensitivity and effortless connection.

Yiddish Summer Weimar 2020 - Opening Concert Herderplatz, 1. Aug 2020

Klezmer music is celebratory dance music involving line, circle and set dances. Susi and Szilvia play for as well as lead Yiddish dances.