20th Anniversary Celebration Part 1

[Wholesale Klezmer Band <ganeydn...>]

The Wholesale Klezmer Band 20th Anniversary Celebration  Part 1

Saturday, October 12, 2002 at 7:30 pm

Club Passim
47 Palmer Street
Harvard Square
Cambridge, MA
Reservations: (617) 492-7679
http://www.clubpassim.org/

It's hard to believe that we've been performing Yiddish music for 
twenty years already.  We began when  a visiting professor at the 
Smith College Theater Department was looking for incidental music for 
his production of I.B. Singer's Yentl the Yeshive Boy in the Fall of 
1982.  For weeks at rehearsals we felt like we were in a different 
world, a world that felt like home.  When it was over we didn't want 
to stop playing the music, and what would eventually be the Wholesale 
Klezmer Band was born.  Three of our eight current members were there 
at the time.

With a few old 78 rpm records, sheet music from the archives at YIVO, 
a song book and lots of enthusiasm as resources, we put together our 
first performance as an independent group at a benefit for Sing Out 
Magazine in Northampton, MA, in December of '82.  Our first full 
length concert was in March of '83, our first bar mitzve in May, and 
our first wedding in June.  Back in those days none of us really were 
Yiddish speakers, though I had attended an informal class which got 
through the first seven chapters of Weinreich.  The first Klez Kamp 
hadn't even happened yet. Our song repertoire included songs I'd 
learned as a teenager from a Theodore Bikel record, and Gebirtig's 
Arbetlozer Marsh (March of the Unemployed) which set the tone for 
Wholesale's tradition of performing Yiddish songs of peace and 
justice.

Twenty years already.  This is the first of our Celebration concerts. 
We're also celebrating the release of our fourth CD (and cassette), 
"Zingen far sholem, tantsn far freyd--Sing for Peace, Dance for Joy."

If you miss us at Passim on October 12, we'll also be at the Iron 
Horse in Northampton on November 3rd and at Tonic in New York City on 
November 10th.  Please see our calendar for more info:
        http://www.WholesaleKlezmer.com/calendar.html

Zayt gezunt (be healthy),

Yosl (Joe) Kurland
The Wholesale Klezmer Band
Colrain, MA 01340
voice/fax: 413-624-3204
http://www.WholesaleKlezmer.com
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