Steve Greenman & Pete Rushefsky @ Tonic (NYC) Klez Brunch April 27

[Pete Rushefsky <klezbanjo...>]

PRESENTING:

Steven Greenman (violin) & Pete Rushefsky (tsimbl)

Vanguard performers of virtuosic klezmer music. 
Original compositions and rarely-heard repertoire
representing the artistic heights of the Ashkenazic
musical canon.

Live on New York?s Lower East Side
Tonic?s Klezmer Brunch, curated by David Krakauer

Date:  Sunday, April 27, 2003
Time:  2 Sets?1:30 and 3:00
Place:  Tonic (www.tonicnyc.com), 
107 Norfolk St. (between Delancey and Rivington)
F train to Delancey/Essex St.

Admission:  $10 per set or $15 for both.



Steven Greenman (violin) & Pete Rushefsky (tsimbl) 

Klezmer Violin/Tsimbl

For the European Jewish professional musician
("Klezmer", pl. "Klezmorim"), the Jewish wedding was
the showcase to reveal their great musical talents. In
addition to the functional dance and ceremonial music
performed, the greatest Klezmorim also performed at
the wedding table ("tish") for wealthy patrons in a
more artistic vein where they could express their
great creative artistry. By performing compositions of
their own, improvised thoughts ("gedanken"), tish
nigunim (table songs), pieces of great pyrotechnical
expertise and other expressive Jewish music solely for
listening, the Klezmer artist often brought the
audience into deep contact with him, mesmerizing the
listeners and often putting them in a soulful trance.
The ability to do this revealed the true greatness of
these artists who were not mere "Klezmers" but instead
consummate performers of the music of their Jewish
people and heritage. By performing such core pieces as
the "Dobridyen'", the "Zogekhts", "Tish Nigunim",
"Shteygers", other Jewish free-rhythm compositions and
their own compositions Der Tsvey perform in an
intimate and pure style reminiscent of these older
Klezmer artists. 

BIOGRAPHIES 

STEVEN GREENMAN
Violinist 

Recognized as one of the finest practioners of
traditional East European Jewish klezmer violin,
Steven Greenman is a seasoned performer of ?Klezmer?
music as well as a serious composer of traditional
klezmer music, a musical arranger and lecturer. He is
one of the first American born klezmer violinists to
create a program and performance style based entirely
on the repertoire of European klezmer violin music.
Together with Walter Zev Feldman (cimbal) Steven
co-founded the Khevrisa ensemble (1998), an ensemble
dedicated to preserving and reconstructing East
European klezmer music through research, concerts,
workshops and lectures. Steven has also performed
internationally with Khevrisa and with such notable
klezmer ensembles as the Klezmatics, Budowitz, the
Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band and Kapelye. Steven
received a grant to be the first recipient of the
Louis E. Emsheimer Memorial Artist in Residence
Program in Cleveland, Ohio (2002) for which he lead
Klezmer workshops for classical string players and
lectured on Klezmer music. Steven has collaborated
with New York dancer/choreographer David Dorfman and
the Cleveland State Dance ensemble as musical director
in Dorfman?s ?Moving Histories?, a modern dance piece
dealing with Jewish identity, and has substituted for
members of the Klezmatics in their 1997 performance of
Tony Kushner?s adaptation of S. Ansky?s ?Dybbuk.?
Steven has lectured and performed at the Jewish
Culture Festival in Krakow, Poland and has been a
regular performer with various ensembles at Toronto?s
Ashkenaz-A Festival of New Yiddish Culture. As a
teacher he has taught klezmer violin and has led
string ensembles at the KlezKanada festival, KlezFest
London and at Living Traditions? KlezKamp. Working
with educators Mitchell Korn and Amy McClellan of the
Cleveland Orchestra educational department?s ?Learning
Through Music? program Steven was selected as a
?Teaching Artist? and developed a children?s program
combining story telling and klezmer music. In addition
to his involvement with klezmer music Steven is a
serious performer of Hungarian ?Nota?, Romanian Gypsy
and Slovak folk music and has performed with the
ensemble Harmonia with whom he co-founded with Walter
Mahovlich in 1993.

Steven received both his Bachelor of Music and Master
of Music degrees in Violin Performance from the
Cleveland Institute of Music studying with Linda
Sharon Cerone, Dr. Eugene Gratovich and the late
Bernhard Goldshmidt. As a classical violinist he is a
regular guest soloist with the Cleveland Pops
Orchestra, performing his own arrangements of
traditional East European Gypsy violin music. Steven
has also performed as a member of the Canton and Akron
Symphony Orchestras and has participated in the
National Repertory Orchestra, the National Orchestral
Institute and the American Institute of Musical
Studies in Graz, Austria.

Together with Walter Zev Feldman, Steven co-produced
and is featured on the recording Khevrisa- European
Klezmer Music on the Smithsonian Folkways label.
Steven is also featured on the following recordings:
as lead violinist with Budowitz? ?Mother Tongue?; as
violinist and musical producer/arranger on Lori
Cahan-Simon?s ?Songs My Bubbe Should Have Taught Me?
(Vol. 1); as accompanist with Alicia Svigals? ?Fidl?;
and with Budowitz and Alicia Svigals on Ellipsis Arts?
?Klezmer Music: A Marriage of Heaven and Earth?. 

PETE RUSHEFSKY
Tsimblist

Pete Rushefsky is a leading revivalist of the tsimbl,
or Jewish hammered dulcimer. A string instrument
played like a xylophone, the tsimbl spread from its
medieval roots with migrating Jewish musicians
throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Sadly, as a
result of pressures such as the Holocaust,
assimilation in the New World and changing musical
tastes, the Jewish tsimbl tradition died out in the
first half of the twentieth century. 

Today Pete Rushefsky is one of a handful of brave
young klezmer musicians to use musicological field and
archival research in recreating a performance style
for this mystical zither. Accomplished as a virtuoso
soloist and much in-demand for his sympathetic
accompaniment style, Rushefsky has taught on the
faculty of KlezKamp and performs with some of the
leading performers of the klezmer revival, including
Steven Greenman, Rebecca Kaplan and Alicia Svigals. He
won much critical acclaim for his recent album with
violinist Elie Rosenblatt entitled "Tsimbl un Fidl:
Klezmer Music for Hammered Dulcimer and Violin"
(available from Hatikvah Music and Amazon.com).
Additionally, Rushefsky has authored a pioneering
instructional book/tape entitled "The Essentials of
Klezmer 5-String Banjo, Volume I" (available from
Elderly Instruments). He has recently relocated to
Syracuse, NY along with a horde of string instruments.



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