IN THE FIDDLER’S HOUSE
High-resolution photos HERE
HOUSTON, TX (April 4, 2024) — Houston Symphony Artistic Partner and world-renowned Israeli-American violinist Itzhak Perlman returns to the Jones Hall stage for a joy-filled concert based on his Emmy-award winning collection of traditional klezmer music, In the Fiddler’s House on May 12. For this special engagement, Mr. Perlman reunites with the project’s original music director, pioneering fiddler Michael Alpert, and saxophonist and pianist Hankus Netsky, a leading figure of the music’s modern revival. Joining them are the renowned Klezmer Conservatory Band featuring vocalist Judy Bressler, visionary clarinetist and mandolinist Andy Statman, and members of the iconoclastic band Klezmatics, singer-accordionist Lorin Sklamberg and trumpeter Frank London.
One of the world’s best-known and most-loved musicians, violinist Itzhak Perlman made his name as a brilliant interpreter of the concert-music canon. His name is indelibly linked with those of the composers he has championed, including Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky. But Perlman is also a tireless ambassador for musical discovery, and in 1995, he participated in making In the Fiddler’s House, a PBS documentary about klezmer, the soulful folk-music style developed by Central and Eastern European Jews. First popularized in the United States during the early decades of the 20th century, klezmer cast a spell on composers like Gustav Mahler, George Gershwin, and Leonard Bernstein. The style enjoyed an explosive revival during the 1970s and ’80s—a resurgence that both prompted and benefitted from the involvement of Perlman, whose spectacularly songful playing proved ideally suited to the genre’s vocal-like manner.
Having performed with every major orchestra and at concert halls around the globe, Perlman was granted a Presidential Medal of Freedom—the nation’s highest civilian honor—by President Obama in 2015, a National Medal of Arts by President Clinton in 2000, and a Medal of Liberty by President Reagan in 1986. Additionally, he has been honored with 16 GRAMMY Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Kennedy Center Honor, a GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award, and a Genesis Prize. Perlman currently serves as Artistic Partner of the Houston Symphony in a partnership that commenced in the 2020-21 Season and culminates at the end of the 2023-24 season.
For tickets and more information, call or text 713.224.7575, or visit houstonsymphony.org/fiddlershouse.
HOUSTON SYMPHONY PRESENTS ITZHAK PERLMAN: IN THE FIDDLER’S HOUSE
Sunday, May 12, 2024 at 7:30 p.m.
Jones Hall for the Performing Arts
Itzhak Perlman, violin
Michael Alpert, vocals, violin
Judy Bressler, vocals, percussion
Frank London, trumpet
Hankus Netsky, music director, arranger, saxophone, piano
Lorin Sklamberg, vocals, accordion
Andy Statman, clarinet, mandolin
Klezmer Conservatory Band
About Itzhak Perlman
Undeniably the reigning virtuoso of the violin, Itzhak Perlman enjoys superstar status rarely afforded a classical musician. Beloved for his charm and humanity as well as his talent, he is treasured by audiences throughout the world who respond not only to his remarkable artistry, but also to his irrepressible joy for making music.
Having performed with every major orchestra and at concert halls around the globe, Perlman has been honored with 16 Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Kennedy Center Honor, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and a Genesis Prize. Perlman has received multiple distinctions from U.S. Presidents over the years: a Presidential Medal of Freedom—the Nation’s highest civilian honor—by President Obama in 2015, a Kennedy Center Honor in 2003, a National Medal of Arts by President Clinton in 2000, and a Medal of Liberty by President Reagan in 1986.
Mr. Perlman has performexd multiple times at the White House, most recently in 2012 at the invitation of President Barack Obama and Mrs. Obama, for Israeli President and Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree Shimon Peres; and at a State Dinner in 2007, hosted by President George W. Bush and Mrs. Bush, for Her Majesty The Queen and His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh. In 2009, he was honored to take part in the Inauguration of President Obama, premiering a piece written for the occasion by John Williams alongside cellist Yo-Yo Ma, clarinetist Anthony McGill, and pianist Gabriela Montero, for an audience of nearly 40 million television viewers in the United States and millions more throughout the world.
About Michael Alpert
Michael Alpert has been a pioneering figure in the renaissance of East European Jewish music and Yiddish culture since the 1970s. He is the recipient of a 2015 National Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts–this country’s highest honor for traditional and heritage artists. He is internationally known for award-winning performances and recordings with Brave Old World, David Krakauer, Itzhak Perlman, Theodore Bikel, Daniel Kahn, Frank London, and others. A native Yiddish speaker and one of the only contemporary singers adept in the traditional style of pre-war East European generations, he is also a celebrated innovator in Yiddish song, with original compositions on social and political themes.
Michael was musical director of the Emmy/Rose D’Or-winning PBS special Itzhak Perlman: In the Fiddler’s House, and is featured in film and broadcast media worldwide. An important link to Old World Jewish musicians, he has documented Jewish music and dance around the globe, is a leading teacher and scholar of the Yiddish cultural arts, and has played a central role in the transmission of Ashkenazic music and dance to younger generations. A longtime research associate of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, he is currently a senior research fellow at NYC’s Center for Traditional Music and Dance; he has taught at Oxford, Columbia, and Indiana Universities, and the New England Conservatory of Music. He is married to the literary scholar Emily Finer.
About Judy Bressler
Judy Bressler recorded, as a special guest singer on ARC in 2015 with Yale Strom and Hot Pstromi, City of the Future-Yiddish Songs from the Former Soviet Union. She is a founding member of Boston’s Klezmer Conservatory Band and is the featured vocalist on all ten KCB CD’s. A third-generation Yiddish performer, Judy was seen in the PBS documentary film A Jumpin’ Night In The Garden Of Eden and was featured hilariously with Joel Grey in Borscht Capades ’94. Being part of In the Fiddler’s House with Itzhak Perlman and company since 1996, the first studio album, the second album “live” at Radio City Music Hall, Mexico City, Moscow, klezzing the Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall (debut) in 2015 for 100th anniversary of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene and Symphony Hall, Boston (debut) 2016 were all highly memorable events, acclaimed and loved by critics and audiences alike.
About Frank London
Frank London is a Grammy-award winning trumpeter and composer, a member of the Klezmatics, and the leader of the Hungarian-New York band, Glass House Orchestra, the bhangra funk group Sharabi (with Deep Singh), and his Shekhinah Big Band. He has performed and recorded with John Zorn, Pink Floyd, Mel Tormé, Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy, LaMonte Young, They Might Be Giants, and David Byrne. Frank is featured on more than 400 CDs.
His own recordings include Invocations (cantorial music); Frank London’s Klezmer Brass Allstars’ Di Shikere Kapelye, Brotherhood of Brass; Nigunim and The Zmiros Project (Jewish mystical songs, with Klezmatics vocalist Lorin Sklamberg); The Debt (film and theater music); The Shekhina Big Band; the soundtrack to The Shvitz; the soundtrack to Perl Gluck’s Divan and four releases with the Hasidic New Wave. His first symphony, 1001 Voices: A Symphony for Queens (with text by Judith Sloan and video by Warren Lehrer)for orchestra, chorus, soloists, tabla, erhu,narrator, actors, and film premiered in 2012.
He is currently composing a Yiddish opera in a Cuban nightclub, Hatuey: Memory of Fire with Elise Thoron;and his latest collaboration is an exploration of klezmer and cantorial music with Cantor Yaakov Lemmer and clarinetist Michael Winograd. Frank’s other projects include the folk-opera A Night in The Old Marketplace (based on Y.L. Peretz’s 1907 play) and the multi-media work Salomé, Woman of Valor (with Adeena Karasick).
About Hankus Netsky
A multi-instrumentalist, composer, and ethnomusicologist, Dr. Hankus Netsky is chair of New England Conservatory’s contemporary improvisation department, a pioneering multi-cultural music department now in its 41st year. He also is founder and director of the Klezmer Conservatory Band, an internationally renowned Yiddish music ensemble. Hankus has composed extensively for film, theater, and television; collaborated closely with such artists as Itzhak Perlman, Robin Williams, Joel Grey, Theodore Bikel, and Robert Brustein; and produced numerous recordings, including ten by the Klezmer Conservatory Band.
He was the recipient of the Yosl Mlotek award and a Forward Fifty award for his role in the resurgence of traditional Eastern European Jewish ethnic musical culture and a New England Conservatory Outstanding Alumni award as well as the Conservatory’s Louis Krasner and Lawrence Lesser awards for Excellence in Teaching. He has taught at McGill University, Hampshire College, Wesleyan University, and Hebrew College. His essays on Jewish music have been published by the University of California Press, the University of Pennsylvania Press, the University of Scranton Press, Hips Roads, and the University Press of America. Temple University Press published his book, Klezmer, Music and Community in 20th Century Jewish Philadelphia, in 2015.
About Lorin Sklamberg
Lorin Sklamberg is a founding member of the Grammy Award-winning Yiddish-American roots band the Klezmatics; his composition Happy Joyous Hanukkah with lyrics by Woody Guthrie has been published in choral arrangements by Hal Leonard. He has been heard on innumerable recordings and live shows, solo and in collaboration with such diverse artists as Jane Siberry, Odetta, Chava Alberstein, Emmylou Harris, Tracy Grammer, Neil Sedaka, Natalie Merchant, and Tony Kushner. He has written and performed for film, dance, stage, and circus, and has produced a number of recordings of world and theater music. He also teaches Yiddish song from São Paulo to St. Petersburg.
Lorin’s and Frank London’s Hasidic “spiritual” programs have resulted in three critically acclaimed recordings. Projects include Saints and Tzadiks with Dublin-born chanteuse Susan McKeown, the score for Erik Anjou’s documentary Deli Man (USA, 2014); the Semer Ensemble, a celebration of Jewish recordings made in Berlin 1933-38; the award-winning Yiddish-Bavarian Alpen Klezmer with Andrea Pancur and Ilya Shneyveys; Sklamberg and the Shepherds (traditional and original Yiddish, Russian, and South Mediterranean music); and composer Jocelyn Pook’s Drawing Life, a multi-media song cycle commissioned by the Jewish Music Institute of London. By day, Lorin serves as the sound archivist of New York’s YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. He is “One of the premier American singers in any genre,” according to Robert Christgau, All Things Considered, National Public Radio.
About Andy Statman
Born into a family with a long line of cantors, composers, and both classical and vaudeville musicians, Andy Statman grew up in Queens, New York. His early musical memories include 1950s rock and roll, big band jazz, and classical music; family get-togethers where the celebrants danced to klezmer melodies and Tin Pan Alley and Broadway tunes; and the rabbi in his afternoon religious school who sang Hasidic songs. Andy started playing bluegrass at age 12 and was soon performing with local bands at colleges, on radio, in clubs, and at Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. At 17, after hearing avant-garde jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler, he began studying saxophone. He became a protégé of legendary klezmer clarinetist Dave Tarras, for whom the master wrote a number of melodies and bequeathed four of his clarinets.
Andy has appeared on more than 100 recordings. His Between Heaven and Earth album was picked as one of the Top Ten CDs of the Year by The New York Times. He has recorded and toured with the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Dr. John, Ricky Skaggs, Béla Fleck, David Grisman, and Itzhak Perlman, among others. A Grammy Award nominee and recipient of grants from the NEA Fellowship and NY State Council on the Arts, he has performed at Carnegie Hall, Town Hall, Lincoln Center, the Met, and at major venues throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, Japan, and Israel. In 2012, Andy received the National Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts—the highest honor given to tradition-based musicians and artists in the United States.
About Klezmer Conservatory Band
A leading voice in the world of klezmer music and Yiddish song for more than 30 years, the Klezmer Conservatory Band (KCB) continues to thrill audiences all over the world. With a repertoire ranging from Yiddish standards to rousing dance medleys and little-known gems, KCB musicians have served as important ambassadors in promoting the universal appeal of Jewish music.
Over the years, the band has appeared at dozens of international music festivals in major venues across the United States, Europe, and Australia, and on ten international broadcasts of A Prairie Home Companion. KCB provided the musical accompaniment for The Fool and the Flying Ship, a 1991 video featuring Robin Williams, played an integral rode in Joel Grey’s Borscht Capades ’94, and performed the music for the much-acclaimed American Repertory Theatre production, Shlemiel the First. Since the late 1990s, Itzhak Perlman has featured KCB in his CD, video, and touring project, In the Fiddler’s House, including performances at Wolf Trap, Great Woods, Radio City Music Hall, the Ravinia Festival, the Saratoga Music Festival, Moscow’s Barvikha Concert Hall, the Mizner Park Amphitheatre in Boca Raton, and the Mann Music Center (Philadelphia).
In December 2002, the KCB performed a concert of orchestral arrangements of klezmer and Yiddish music with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. In 1988, world-renowned choreographer Bill T. Jones choreographed a piece based on music from their CD, A Jumpin’ Night in the Garden of Eden, for the Boston Ballet. Recently, the band re-joined Itzhak as an integral part of his cantorial/Hassidic/klezmer/Yiddish folk music project, Eternal Echoes, and received rave reviews for their recent Sony CD release and live concert performances, including Boston’s Symphony Hall, Brooklyn’s Barclay’s Center, and the Hollywood Bowl. The band is soon to be featured in Rejoice!, a full-length PBS Great Performances music special.
About Houston Symphony
Under Music Director Juraj Valčuha, the Houston Symphony continues its second century as one of America’s leading orchestras with a full complement of concert, community, education, touring, and recording activities. One of the oldest performing arts organizations in Texas, the Symphony held its inaugural performance at The Majestic Theater in downtown Houston on June 21, 1913. Today, with an operating budget of $37.8 million, the full-time ensemble of professional musicians presents more than 130 concerts annually, making it the largest performing arts organization in Houston. Traditionally, musicians of the orchestra and the Symphony’s three Community-Embedded Musicians also offer over 1,000 community-based performances each year at various schools, community centers, hospitals, and churches reaching more than 200,000 people in Greater Houston annually.
After suspending concert activities in March 2020, the Symphony successfully completed a full 2020–21 season with in-person audiences and weekly livestreams of each performance, making it one of the only orchestras in the world to do so. The Houston Symphony remains committed to livestreaming its 2023–24 Season to a broad audience in over forty-five countries and all fifty states, one of few American orchestras dedicated to transmitting live performances to a size-able audience outside its home city through this technology. The Grammy Award-winning Houston Symphony has recorded under various prestigious labels, including Koch International Classics, Naxos, RCA Red Seal, Telarc, Virgin Classics, and, most recently, Dutch recording label Pentatone. In 2017, the Houston Symphony was awarded an ECHO Klassik award for the live recording of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck under the direction of former Music Director Hans Graf. The orchestra earned its first Grammy nomination and Grammy Award at the 60th annual ceremony for the same recording in the Best Opera Recording category. The Symphony’s most recent recordings include a Pentatone release in January 2022 of its world premiere performances of Jimmy López Bellido’s Aurora and Ad Astra, and a Naxos release in July 2023 of its world premiere performance of Jennifer Higdon’s Duo Duel.
