MED-REN-KLEZ-JAM

Sat, 04 Jan 2025 (EST)

08:00PM - 11:00PM

Jalopy Theatre

315 Columbia Street

Brooklyn, NY 112311

with Avery Gosfield, recorder, percussion; Eléonore Weill, winds, hurdy-gurdy, voice; Eléonore Biezunski, voice, fiddle; Sarah Myerson, voice, percussion; and Ilya Shneyveys,

accordion, percussion and other instruments… (8:00 – 9:30)

Klezmer Jam session (9:30ish – 11:00)

Doors open: 7:30 P.M.

Concert: 8:00 – 9:30 P.M.

Followed by a Jam Session until 11:00 P.M.

Tickets $20

MED-REN-KLEZ - CONCERT (8:00 – 9:30)

When a Medieval and Renaissance roots music expert like Avery Gosfield (recorder, percussion,) gets together with four of Brooklyn’s finest interpreters of Yiddish, Klezmer and Eastern European (but not only) music: French vocalist multi-instrumentalist Eleonore Weill, and the astonishingly talented accordion (and nearly everything else) player Ilya Shneyveys, singer and multi-instrumentalist Sarah Myerson, and singer, virtuoso fiddler and Yiddishist Eléonore Elzi Biezunski, you know you’re in for an evening of astonishing, unpredictable sounds. The concept is not so much “World” as “Time” music - jumping through the ages, fusing old and new rhythms, tunes, and styles (with plenty of improvisation thrown in for good luck) making new sounds from old stuff. Because, in the end, it doesn’t matter from where or when the music comes from, as long as it makes you want to dance.

KLEZ-JAM (ca. 9:30 – 11:00)

Bring your instruments along for a Klezmer Jam Session led by multi-instrumentalist Ilya Shneyveys with a few medieval and traditional French songs thrown in…

Eléonore Biezunski is an award-winning Parisian singer/violinist/songwriter and scholar now living in NYC. An avid collector of Yiddish music, she has led several projects and has collaborated and recorded with a large number of well-known Jewish performers in the US and abroad. Her composition “Tshemodan” was voted Best New Yiddish Song at the 2021 Bubbe Awards. As YIVO’s Sound Archivist, Eléonore coordinates the Ruth Rubin Legacy website She has a PhD from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, is a member of the Klezmer Institute’s KMDMP and Klezmer Archive Project and is a recipient of an NYSCA Folk Arts Apprenticeship.

Born in Philadelphia, based in Europe, Avery Gosfield has been playing and researching Medieval and Renaissance Roots Music - the tunes that the normal people might have played, sung or danced to in the Renaissance – ever since she can remember. In 2004, this research led her to some unknown Jewish poems, which she set to old music, pursuing the early-Jewish link with passion. With her early music group Lucidarium, she has played in most of the major Early and Jewish music festivals of Europe and North America.

Sarah Myerson is an ordained cantor actively working to connect egalitarian Jewish religious with secular/cultural Yiddish communities. She serves as the Kol Bo Spiritual Leader of Roosevelt Island Jewish Congregation and lives in Brooklyn, New York. She teaches Yiddish song workshops and Yiddish dance workshops worldwide (for example at Yiddish New York and Yiddish Summer Weimar) and online; leads Yiddish dance, composes and performs as a multi-instrumentalist in a variety of musical settings. She has a Master’s and Hazzan Diploma from the JTS, and a Bachelor of Music (Composition Honors) from the Sydney Conservatorium.

Ilya Shneyveys (accordion/piano) is an international performer, accordionist and multi- instrumentalist, teacher, composer, arranger and producer of contemporary Jewish music, from klezmer and Yiddish folk song to fusion and experimental projects. Long-time faculty member at Yiddish Summer Weimar, he is the artistic director of the Yiddish psychedelic rock band Forshpil and the Caravan Orchestra, for which he was awarded the 2017 Shimon- Peres-Prize.Originally from Riga, Latvia, Ilya has been traveling the world for the last 15 years promoting Yiddish music and culture and is currently based in Brooklyn, NY.

French vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Eléonore Weill is acclaimed for her soulful interpretations of Yiddish, East European and French traditional music. Hailing from a musical family in Southern France and now based in Brooklyn, Weill performs and records in a variety of ensembles, from klezmer to Romanian and Occitan folk music. Performing on recorder, wooden flutes, piano, accordion and hurdy-gurdy, Weill’s music is informed by her conviction that traditional songs have great power to create social change.