Klezmer brings vibrant melodies to Richardson

Anyone who has been to Richardson Auditorium knows it is not a top candidate for a place most likely to be transported to Eastern Europe.

But it happened on Sunday. The University student klezmer group, the Klezmocrats, joined with a professional group started in Princeton, the Klez Dispensers, in an afternoon of vivid nostalgia, tangible emotion and beautiful music. The event was fittingly called "Kleztravaganza!"

Eastern European Jewry created klezmer music and transported it to the United States with the waves of immigrants escaping pogroms in the early 20th century. Klezmer has enjoyed a renaissance in America, mixing with elements of American jazz, even as Yiddish is a dying language and the memory of Eastern Europe fades into the past.

The group, co-founded by clarinetist Josh Burton '05 and violinist David Spielberg '05, also includes cellist Emily Huang '05, violinist Marcus Lampert '07, pianist Ben Rosenberg '05 and Eve Glazer '06 on the trumpet.

Spielberg — who is doing his independent research in the music department on klezmer music in the early 20th century — thanked the CJL for funding. He added rakishly that they had been "very instrumental."

The Klezmocrats presented their signature piece, "Rabbis in Palestine," a simple repeated melody with sweeping strokes and trumpets presiding over trills.

The piano and the trumpet plodded with the clarinet in harmony, making music from the sorrows and drama of everyday life. On Lampert's face, in the arch of his eyebrows, was the expression of communal, centuries-old anguish passing into the sublime.

The wailing lament of the violins gently enfolds you in the rich peace of a distant past, the bright culture calling seductively, fresh, wondrous and startlingly here, improbably close. Then it grows louder, more urgent, with the faster running notes of the violin and the clarinet. The abandon of spirit is both careless and entirely uncontainable — but still somehow manages to happen on the beat.

"They've done amazing things with this music," said Rabbi Jim Diamond, who offered his official welcome in the name of the CJL between the two groups. "I think it's extraordinary in the early years of the 21st century, with the whole experience of Eastern Jewry receding far behind us, that Princeton students would want to play this music," he said, adding that he believed the students were worthy successors to the tradition.

Diamond explained how klezmer's history at Princeton began five years ago, when he agreed to let some students practice in the CJL building. He said, "We are about Jewish life, Jewish memory, Jewish hopes."

But he was not prepared for just how vibrant this Jewish life would be. When he first heard the students, he said he was "blown away" by their talent and began arranging his schedule so he could hear them rehearsing downstairs. From these humble beginnings sprung the Klez Dispensers, a group that has performed at concerts, weddings and bar mitzvahs throughout the East Coast and released two CDs, "a career that has taken them justifiably well beyond Princeton."

Members of the Klez Dispensers include vocalist and former writer for The Daily Princetonian Inna Barmash '01, violinist Amy Zakar '99, clarinetist Alex Kontorovich '02, trumpet player Ben Holmes '01 and pianist Adrian Banner GS.

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Explaining why she founded the group, Barmash said, "Jewish instrumental music was missing from Princeton. But there was so much talent."

Also performed were a piece written by Banner for Zakar, his fiancée, and the debut performance of a Romanian composition written by drummer Gregg Mervine — "Drummers can write compositions too," Banner said — a march looking back which could in fact be easily identified as a drummer's piece by the competing rhythms fabricated all at once.

Barmash's Yiddish is sweet and warm as she appeals to the audience, a trembling conversationalist — except those who do not speak Yiddish cannot understand her. But the melodies are universal, as evidenced by a little girl spotted dancing in the balcony.

"It's great to come back to such a wonderful community. Every time I look at the auditorium it brings back so many memories," said Barmash, who wrote for The Daily Princetonian.

Every instrument in the Klez Dispensers has a distinct character, a personality, each adding a texture, a flavor and an accented beat to the mix. Instruments transcend the confines of the inanimate; a clarinet is turned into a soaring bird. Holmes had a face of fierce concentration, seemingly channeling his soul into the note, a note of perseverance, which hung like a burning question in the air. Sweeping, stomping, the intensity had the audience nodding their heads, wanting more.

Part of their magic is the way they move their instruments, and part is the way they relate to one another. Audrey Wright, the saxophone player, and Kontorovich exchanged a smile after a particularly intense duel of notes.

It is easy to get lost in the music.

"There is just so much happening at once," said Nick Jacobson GS, an enthusiastic member of the audience.

Finally, the Klezmocrats joined the Klez Dispensers in "Freylach #1." It was beautiful to see so many people playing at once in harmony, symbolizing the passing down of music through the generations.

Amidst the bowing and clapping, Barmash sized up the audience to see if an encore was in order.

"You want one more?" she asked.

The crowd cheered wildly.

"I think that was a yes," Barmash said.