KlezKamp26

KlezKamp26

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

KlezKamp 2010






Di HooHA!

Tonight, KlezKamp's newest old tradition Di HooHA our fency-shmency dress up dance party takes off at 7:45 with Tantz Meister Steve Weintraub leading hundreds of dancers in a gaggle of high end ballroom dances.
The 20 piece orchestra under the batons of Cookie Segelstein and Pete Sokolow will lay down compelling dance rhythms while dressed as well as if they were actually getting paid for the gig. Add to that the intermission performance of Jenny Romaine's and Tine Kindermann's Youth Theater Workshop production of Di Balade fun dem Yid Vos Iz Gegansen frun Groy Biz Blo (The Jew Who Went from Gray to Blue) after Itzik Manger.
Tired yet? How about three (count 'em three) dance bands followed by a midnight Yiddish song kabaret and you have the end of another perfect KlezKamp day.

All the cool kids speak Yiddish...

For the last 90 minutes, there have been a two young co-eds, maybe 18-19 at most and cute like heck, flirting furiously entirely in Yiddish.

When's the last time you heard that?

BTW: all the cool kids speak Yiddish.

Whew...

Man, it was kind of like a dream.

Clarinetist and producer Alex Kontorovich made the treacherous drive up from the city to lead a good chunk of the Klezkamp staff in a tribute concert (turned dance party) to the late clarinetist German Goldenshteyn. The occasion was the release of the latest Living Traditions CD "The Tradition Lives: Yiddish-Moldavian Music of German Goldenshteyn" by the Goldenshteyn Memorial Orchestra. Recorded at Klezkamp just last year, the release sees the reunion of all the players from German's first and only recording "German Goldenshteyn: A Living Tradition," (available on iTunes and CD Baby) playing material chosen by German and Alex for his second release, but sadly was unable to record after his untimely demise not long after the release of his first CD.

But it was with hearts filled with joy that the band hit the Hudson Valley stage last night, playing down German's repertoire as if that's the only music they had ever played. With no rehearsal and only a glass of vodka for preparation Kontorovich lead a band featuring Dan Blacksberg, Cookie Segelstein, Susan Hoffman-Lankin, Henry Sapoznik, Lauren Brody and yours truly through a solid 90 minutes of Moldavian tunes played in the Jewish style that German first introduced to us. (Accordionist Joshua Horowitz and drummer Aaron Alexander could not attend for family and weather issues, though they were with us in spirit.)

Links to purchase this CD, as well as the new Pete Sokolow CD, will be posted soon!