london klezmer quartet…

Moira and I attended to a quite extraordinary evening of music last night at Saint Stephen’s. The London Klezmer Quartet is a group of four immensely-talented and dynamic musicians (featuring violin, clarinet, accordion and double bass), formed in 2009 by a group of klezmer specialists keen to explore the almost-lost wedding music tradition of Jewish eastern Europe. I went along anticipating good musicianship and an entertaining evening but, if I’m honest, little more than that really. I couldn’t recall ever having been to a concert of Jewish music before and my expectations were probably limited to images of “Fiddler on the Roof” (pathetic, I know)!
Well, how wrong I was!
What transpired was an evening of glorious, celebratory and soulful music of the Eastern European Jewish tradition – old and new traditional songs, exuberant, passionate and hugely-accomplished performances (and they were witty and funny too). They were a complete revelation.
I was particularly taken by the double bass player, Indra Buraczewska (out of Latvia/Australia!) – a wonderful musician and a natural ‘performer’… with an incredible, deep singing voice. Completely captivating.
A brilliant, exciting evening!
PS: They were supported by an unusual and, again, highly-talented “Chai For All” – ‘trumpet-led klezmer Balkan and Arabic tunes with kaval, clarinet, oud, guitar, derabukka and Yiddish song’. Pretty special in their own right!