Bands playing klezmer, the distinctly Jewish and mostly joyous music genre, get to play on many stages. Add Itzhak Perlman—one of the great concert violinists of our era—and you get the stage at Chicago’s Symphony Center.
The 77-year-old Perlman was the big draw for the concert performed Sunday night. It was titled In The Fiddler’s House after a 1996 PBS documentary (and subsequent album) in which the Israel-born Perlman, already a giant of the classical music world, explored Jewish roots music.
Despite a bout of polio at age 4 that permanently left him without use of his legs, Perlman’s immense talent and drive first emerged to U.S. audiences when he appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1958 at age 13. He has won numerous awards during his long career, including a Presidential Medal of Freedom bestowed by President Barack Obama and 16 Grammy Awards.
Chicago Symphony Orchestra describes Perlman as “undeniably the reigning virtuoso of the violin.” Having appeared with CSO dozens of times since 1966, Perlman was on familiar ground at Orchestra Hall Sunday.
No surprise, then, that Perlman fiddled with the same brilliance and perfect pitch for which he is known in classical venues.
Klezmer's Comeback
The troubled history of Judaism has produced plenty of mournful music, but Sunday’s concert underscored that there is little of that in klezmer. This is party music, dance music, music to bring joy and entertainment to the hard lives lived by many of its European listeners.
Klezmer arose in the Jewish communities of Central and Eastern Europe in the late 16th century and had enduring popularity. Jewish immigrants brought the music with them to the United States, making klezmer a fixture in their largely insular urban communities.
With assimilation and the rise of radio and then television, many American Jews abandoned Old World conventions for generic popular music, and by mid-20th century, klezmer appeared en route to becoming a lost art form. While Fiddler on the Roof introduced millions to the Jewish music of the shtetl, klezmer was largely saved by the general folk music revival starting in the 1960s that spurred a number of young Jewish musicians to explore their own roots.
Of the 12 performers in the klezmer super-group who shared the stage with Perlman Sunday, many played important roles in the revival and elevation of this style of music over the past few decades.
Andy Statman, who had his own star turn on the mandolin and clarinet during the concert, was one of these seekers. His blazing mandolin playing had already established him as an in-demand bluegrass artist when he teamed with tsimbl player Zev Feldman on the seminal 1979 album Jewish Klezmer Music.
Frank London on trumpet moved from the brass section to the front of the stage for several numbers. Hankus Netsky, who played piano, accordion and saxophone and acted as the show’s emcee, is founder and director of the Boston-based Klezmer Conservatory Band. Judy Bressler, also a founding member of that group, is a third-generation Yiddish singer; she was joined on vocals by Michael Alpert (also on violin), Lorin Sklamberg (lead accordion and backup piano) and London.
Rounding out the troupe were Ilene Stahl, brilliant on klezmer’s essential clarinet; Mark Berney (cornet); Mark Hamilton (trombone); James Guttmann (bass); Grantley Smith (drums); and Pete Rushefsky on tsimbl, a hammered dulcimer.
Together with Perlman they produced a toe-tapping, hand-clapping zeitgeist that prevailed throughout the evening—so much so that when Netsky declared the hall a “simcha palace” (a Jewish venue for parties and celebrations) midway through the concert, most attendees got up on their feet and a number of them accepted the invitation to dance in the aisles.
As beloved as Itzhak Perlman is, it’s probably a safe bet that it was the first time that ever happened when he played Chicago’s Orchestra Hall.
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