Pressburger Klezmer Band
Join us, this year exceptionally online, for Hanukkah, a joyous celebration of family, freedom, and light. The festive evening will feature a renowned Slovak ensemble the Pressburger Klezmer Band and their new concert program #25 ROOTS; an introduction by Michael Beckerman, Carroll and Milton Petrie Chair and Collegiate Professor of Music at New York University, and lighting Hanukkah candles by Rabbi Norman Patz and live Maoz Tzur signing.
Tickets, $10 each, are available online.
Pressburger Klezmer Band is a Slovak ensemble renowned for its eight CDs and one vinyl, and hundreds of concerts in Slovakia and around the world. Hardly anybody remembers that this legendary band started as a group of amateur friends in 1995, and so this year, they celebrate already twenty-five years of their music. The presented new concert program #25 ROOTS is a result of a long and profound research, songs collection and musical arrangements. Each song has a unique history and together they present the richness and variety of the klezmer tradition.
Two group members, Samo Alexander and Andrej Werner, will introduce the new program in a special conversation with Michael Beckerman, Carroll and Milton Petrie Chair and Collegiate Professor of Music at New York University. The conversation will be followed by a unique streaming of the new program that has not been made public yet due to the pandemic.
The event will include lighting Hanukkah candles by Rabbi Norman Patz and live Maoz Tzur signing.
Get your latkes, doughnuts, and computers ready!
Samo Alexander (founder of the band, double bass, lead vocals) grew up listening to klezmer and classical LPs and playing violin, he later switched to electric bass and double bass. As a high school student he formed the Preßburger Klezmer Band back in 1995. Since then his interest in both the traditional and modern klezmer music grew deeper, he likes finding unknown Yiddish songs either from Slovakia or from different songbooks and arranging them for the band. After studies of economics he decided to concentrate on music and finished the classical double bass class at the Music University in Cologne. He is the co-principal double bass player in the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra and he teaches at a music school. He lives in Bratislava with his wife and their two children.
Andrej Werner is a violinist and arranger of the Pressburger Klezmer Band. Besides that, he is an organizer of cultural events connected to Jewish music, especially the Slovak section of Festival KlezMORE held in Vienna and Bratislava since 2014. “Recently I found a photo from when I was only several months old and my parents were showing me how to play the piano. I looked scared. Maybe that’s why I ended up playing violin… I wasn’t able to befriend the classics, so I started to play folk music. I enjoy any good folk music, and that’s why I’ve been playing with the Pressburger Klezmer Band for years.”
Michael Beckerman is Carroll and Milton Petrie Chair and Collegiate Professor of Music at New York University. He has written articles on such subjects as film scoring, music of the Roma (Gypsies), Mozart, Brahms, exiled composers, and music in the camps, as well as many studies and several books on Czech topics, including Dvořák and His World (Princeton University Press, 1993), Janáček as Theorist (Pendragon Press, 1994), New Worlds of Dvořák (W.W. Norton, 2003), Janáček and His World (Princeton, 2004), and Martinů’s Mysterious Accident (Pendragon, 2007). Dr. Beckerman lectures nationally and internationally and has organized many concerts and symposia. He was awarded the Janacek Medal by the Czech Ministry of Culture, is a recipient of the Dvorak Medal, and is also a Laureate of the Czech Music Council; he has twice received the Deems Taylor Award.
This event is organized by The Society for the History of Czechoslovak Jews, with support of BBLA and the Consulate General of Slovakia in New York.