Video: “Lolly Lo” – Klezmatics – live at Town Hall

The Klezmatics present Hanukkah at The Falcon in Marlboro, NY on December 10, 2022 from 7 to 10:30 PM EST. For 36 years the Klezmatics have challenged, changed and renewed the face of contemporary Yiddish culture with 13 acclaimed recordings and countless live shows worldwide, as well as impassioned and indelible collaborative contributions to art, theater, dance and film. Winner of the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album for their landmark Wonder Wheel: Lyrics by Woody Guthrie, the band continues to inspire with their most recent release, Letters to Afar. 

Excerpts from their website: Join the Klezmatics’ longtime lineup – Lorin Sklamberg (lead vocals, accordion, guitar, piano), Frank London (trumpet, keyboards, vocals), Paul Morrissett (bass, tsimbl, vocals), Matt Darriau (clarinet, saxophone, kaval, vocals), Lisa Gutkin (violin, vocals), and Richie Barshay (drums, vocals) – as they happily return to The Falcon to usher in the holiday season with music both new and old, including songs from Woody Guthrie’s Happy Joyous Hanukkah.

Accordionist Lorin Sklamberg: The legendary music critic Robert Christgau has described Lorin Sklamberg’s voice as “transcendent, ethereal and sensual,” while a writer for Folkworld gushed that the Klezmatics’ frontman “brings tears into my eyes with his fabulous way of singing.” Since he co-founded the legendary klezmer group in 1986, Lorin Sklamberg has been on the receiving end of countless tributes of that nature—his crystalline, expressive vocalizing never fails to have an emotional impact on all within its range.

Since the creation of the Klezmatics, Sklamberg has continued to find his voice and apply it to a number of disciplines. He has also worked for the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research for almost 20 years, first as a jack-of-all-trades, graphic designer and Yiddish typesetter, and then as its Sound Archivist. For 14 years he was the coordinator of KlezKamp: The Yiddish Folk Arts Program, and co-founded Living Traditions, the non-profit that sponsored it for seven of those years.

“The Klezmatics remain my primary musical outlet,” says Lorin, “but I have a couple of side projects—one is an ongoing series of programs of (primarily Hasidic) Jewish spiritual music with bandmate Frank London, the other is an exploration of the Yiddish and Irish song traditions with Dublin-born vocalist Susan McKeown.”

Lorin can be heard on 50 CDs, and also composes and performs for film, dance, stage and circus, produces recordings, and teaches and lectures from London and Paris to Kiev and St. Petersburg. By day he works as the Sound Archivist for the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

Additional 2022 Hanukkah programs:
The Klezmatics Hanukkah Show at Drom NYC
Sunday, December 11, 2022 from 8:00 PM  9:30 PM New York, NY 10009

The Klezmatics 2022 Hanukkah Tour, Montalvo Arts Center
Saratoga, CA, Thursday, December 15, 2022 from 7:30 PM to 9:00 PM

The Klezmatics 2022 Hanukkah Tour, Freight & Salvage
Berkeley, California, Saturday, December 17, 2022 from 8:00 PM to 9:30 PM

The Klezmatics 2022 Hanukkah Tour, Henderson, NV
Water Street Plaza Amphitheater
Dec. 18 from 3 to 4:30 PM