By Jessica Davis, JTNews Correspondent
America’s largest Klezmer orchestra, the Klezmer Conservatory Band, will once again visit Seattle’s Benaroya Hall this month.
The 11-member group, now in its 22nd season, caters to a diverse audience, performing a mixture of music from the old country to modern jazz and swing.
“It’s very much for everybody,” says Hankus Netsky, the founder of the band. “People can bring their kids and bring their parents.”
Netsky plays alto saxophone, accordion and piano in the band, which also includes Judy Bressler on vocals and trombone; Ilene Stahl on the clarinet; violinist Deborah Strauss; Robin Miller on flute and piccolo; Mark Berney, a Pacific Northwest native, on the cornet; Mark Hamilton, trombone; pianist Art Bailey; Jeff Warschauer on mandolin, guitar, tenor banjo and background vocals; James Guttmann on the bass; and drummer and percussionist Grant Smith.
The group has recorded nine albums and toured worldwide at such places as the International Yiddish Festival in Krakow, Poland, the Dranouter Folk Festival in Belgium, Australia’s Adelaide Festival, and at Lincoln Center in New York.
The group was featured on the documentary film, A Jumpin’ Night in the Garden of Eden and the film Enemies: A Love Story. The Klezmer Conservatory Band also appeared with violinist Itzhak Perlman in the PBS special “In The Fiddler’s House,” and performed Netsky’s original score for the children’s video,“The Fool and the Flying Ship,” with narration by Robin Williams, which aired nationwide on the Showtime cable network.
They also founded the Klezmer Conservatory Foundation, which provides financial support to needy organizations such as schools, hospitals and senior citizens’ groups, so they can afford to present live Yiddish and Klezmer music.
In addition, the foundation is dedicated to the collection and preservation of Klezmer and Yiddish manuscripts and recordings.
“In the early days, it was the music of the Jewish community,” says Netsky.
Klezmer music began in medieval Europe, where bands of Jewish musicians went from town to town playing for Jewish festivals and special events. Early in the twentieth century, Eastern European Jewish immigrants brought Klezmer music with them to America, and here the old tunes were played over the syncopated rhythms of jazz. The old Klezmer melody “Palestina” became a Dixieland tune, and in 1939, “Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn,” a song from the Yiddish theatre, became the biggest popular hit America had ever known. In the 1940s, however, with new styles of music emerging, the Klezmer tradition started to fade.
“There’s this huge body of music that never was recorded,” says Netsky.
Both Netsky’s grandfather and an uncle performed in Philadelphia Klezmer orchestras in the 1920s. Netsky, born in 1955, started listening to Klezmer music in 1974.
“I’d never heard anything like it,” he recalls. “I was really inspired by hearing that stuff.”
In 1980, fueled by a desire to return to his roots, Netsky started the Klezmer Conservatory Band at the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he was and still is a faculty member. It proved to be a difficult task.
“I didn’t have anyone to play with,” he says.
When the band started, books on Klezmer were not to be found. “The word ‘Klezmer’ was virtually unknown,” says Netsky. “Over the years, it’s really become part of the American picture.”
In the early ‘80s, Klezmer bands had just started to re-emerge. Today, a revival is in full swing.
Cornet player Mark Berney was first exposed to Klezmer music in the ‘90s while living in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood.
“I thought, man, this music is way too hard. I could never play this stuff,” he recalls.
He later found himself auditioning for the band in Boston and joined the group in March of 1998. Now, at age 31, he is looking forward to playing with the band in his old hometown.
“It’s a beautiful city and a beautiful hall, “he says. “[Seattle audiences are] going to have the time of their lives.”
The Klezmer Conservatory Band performs at 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 9 and 10 at Benaroya Hall, 200 University St., Seattle. Tickets are $16—$55. Call 206-215-4747 or visit www.seattlesymphony.org or www.klezmerconservatory.com.