ISLE OF KLEZBOS: Yiddish Cinema Revisited

Yiddish Cinema Soundtracks Revisited

Isle of Klezbos quartet specialize in cine-concerts with re-imagined vintage music scores played in new Klezmer arrangements, juxtaposed with Yiddish film clips both celebrated and obscure. This captivating "tour" is led by drummer/cinema scholar Eve Sicular, with live movie music adaptations as well as original sound footage from famous celluloid such as Der Dybbuk and Molly Picon hits Mamele and Yidl Mitn Fidl, plus lesser-known movie masterpieces from early sound feature Uncle Moses to operatic screen cantor Moishe Oysher’s tour de force Overture to Glory [Der Vilner Shtot Khazn], as well as Edgar Ulmer’s screwball comedy American Matchmaker, early Soviet Yiddish theater newsreels, and more. Performed by Debra Kreisberg /clarinet & alto saxophone; Pam Fleming /trumpet & flugelhorn; Shoko Nagai /accordion, piano, and Epsilon Spires organ; and bandleader Eve Sicular /drums, whose archival research background is based on her curatorial roles at YIVO Institute Film Archives & the landmark MoMA retrospective “Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film Between Two Worlds” (and her subsequent lectures & publications on Music in Yiddish Cinema and The Yiddish Celluloid Closet). 

Now in the band’s 25th year, the soulful, fun-loving powerhouse all-gal klezmer quartet has toured from Vienna to Vancouver since 1998. Their repertoire ranges from rambunctious to entrancing: Neo-traditional folk dance, mystical melodies, Yiddish swing & retro tango, late Soviet-era Jewish drinking song, re-grooved standards, and genre-defying originals. Broadcast credits include CBS Sunday Morning, The L Word, PBS, as well as over a dozen film soundtracks such as Grace Paley: Collected Shorts and Esther Broner: A Weave of Women.

“Brilliant, intense, eclectic... and deliriously fun” -New York Music Daily