Amsterdam Klezmer Band and Klezmafour: klezmer traditions and shared live energy

A must for anyone who loves a wild party to klezmer music, especially as AKB will be joined by Poland’s leading klezmer export, the audience favourites KLEZMAFOUR!

Over 17 years, Amsterdam Klezmer Band have grown from street buskers into true international festival stars. The seven-piece combine klezmer tradition with Romani and Balkan dance music, adding fresh touches of funk, jazz, ska and hip-hop.

Amsterdam Klezmer Band take us on an extraordinary journey through a vanished Eastern European world, mixing traditional Yiddish music with Balkan, Turkish, Romanian, Romani and Russian influences in a remarkable way. They leave pure klezmer behind in favour of a wild, dance-inducing mixture, evoking the distinctive multicultural atmosphere of old Europe's streets and taverns.

The band are not called “the Pogues of klezmer music” by chance: their music contains madness, joy and decadence, the tavern atmosphere of towns and cities where cultures meet. Nor is it accidental that concerts are their natural habitat. Live, they are a veritable volcano of energy, with each of the seven musicians playing several instruments to create an exceptionally colourful spectacle.

Amsterdam Klezmer Band’s line-up is:

Jasper de Beer: double bass, guitar banjo, backing vocals Job Chajes: alto saxophone, vocals Alec Kopyt: vocals, percussion Gijs Levelt: trumpet Joop van der Linden: trombone, percussion Janfie van Strien: clarinet, backing vocals Theo van Tol: accordion

KlezmaFour is a band spanning Lublin, Białystok and Warsaw, drawing its inspiration from the region's klezmer tradition. Its approach, however, is thoroughly innovative, with almost punk-rock energy and Balkan exuberance.

The band won two awards at the highly prestigious Internationaal Joods Muziek Festival 2010 in Amsterdam. The win led to a warmly received tour of the USA and Canada, where they performed to audiences of several thousand alongside stars such as Balkan Beat Box.

These thoroughly trained musicians are unafraid to experiment, hence exotic instruments such as darabuka and futujara, alongside scratches by Vavamuffin’s Dubbist. Despite classical instrumentation, clarinet, violin, accordion, double bass and drums, the atmosphere at Klezmafour concerts often resembles rock or hip-hop shows, while working equally well in philharmonic halls. Whether in Istanbul, New York or Białowieża, regardless of the audience’s age, sooner or later everyone is swept away by the energy pouring from the stage…

KlezmaFour’s line-up is:

Andrzej Czapliński – violin; Wojciech Czapliński – clarinet; Rafał Grząka – accordion; Gabriel Tomczuk – double bass; Tomasz “Harry” Waldowski – drums.

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