Veretski Pass \u2013 Joshua Horowitz, left, Cookie Segelstein and Stuart Brotman \u2013 will be joined by clarinetist Joel Rubin to present the world premi\u00e8re of music from their new album, Makonovetsky\u2019s Scion. <\/i>(photo from Klezcadia)<\/i><\/p>\n
Victoria will host Klezcadia, a hybrid klezmer and Yiddish culture festival showcasing a West Coast lineup of musical mastery and mavenry. Running June 4-9 in-person and online, there is no charge to attend.<\/p>\n
According to festival director Laura Rosenberg, Klezcadia intends to position Victoria as a focal point for klezmer and Yiddish cultural tourism. In conjunction with the music, the six-day event will present classes, workshops, lectures, demonstrations and open rehearsals conducted by artists, language faculty and other guests.<\/p>\n
\u201cKlezcadia\u2019s audiences can expect cutting-edge performances \u2013 including three world premi\u00e8res \u2013 by some of the world\u2019s leading klezmer artists. Additionally, participants at any level of experience will have opportunities to attend classes, workshops and presentations by these same artists and their Yiddish-language colleagues,\u201d Rosenberg told the Independent<\/i>.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur guiding principle is to make the safe in-person attendance experience and the virtual attendance experience as equivalent and rich as current technology allows, as well as to give the same level of respect to all attendees,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Some of the featured artists will be Veretski Pass, a Bay Area trio that will perform with clarinetist Joel Rubin; Vancouver musician Geoff Berner; and Jeanette Lewicki in her new show as Pepi Litman, an early 20th-century Yiddish theatre drag star.<\/p>\n
Comprised of Cookie Segelstein (violin), Joshua Horowitz (19th-century button accordion) and Stuart Brotman (bass), Veretski Pass offers a wide mix of East European influences. Reuniting with Rubin, they will present the world premi\u00e8re of music from Makonovetsky\u2019s Scion<\/i>, their new album for the Borscht Beat label.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Berner, a singer, songwriter, accordionist, novelist and political activist, will stage the premi\u00e8re of Second Fleet, the Yiddish song cycle he recently co-wrote with Canadian writer Michael Wex, author of the bestseller Born to Kvetch<\/i>, a humorous and scholarly look at the Yiddish language.<\/p>\n Lewicki will transmit the spirit of Litman, the original \u201cdrag king\u201d of Yiddish theatre, in another premi\u00e8re. The Pepi Litman Project<\/i> will examine the time when a groundbreaking performer literally \u201cwore the pants,\u201d led her own touring troupe, turned taverns into theatres, and tested societal boundaries with her satire. Litman toured Europe and reportedly North America, too, singing, in male garb, at spas, inns and private homes in small towns and large cities alike.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Some of the talks and workshops on offer at the festival are The Barry Sisters: America\u2019s Yiddish Swingsters, with Andy Muchin, the host of the Sounds Jewish<\/i> radio show on PRX; Yiddish Through Song Lyrics, with Seattle-based Marianne Tatom, a Yiddish teacher and klezmer musician; and Yiddish Through Conversation, with Sasha Berenstein, a multi-instrument musician and fellow with the Yiddish Book Centre\u2019s Yiddish Pedagogy Program.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n On June 5, Christina Crowder of the Klezmer Institute will speak about the Kiselgof-Makonovetsky Digital Manuscript Project, an international endeavour connecting participants with the work of important klezmer musicians from the late-19th and early-20th centuries.<\/p>\n The festival will take a walk on the vilde<\/i> side on June 8 with what organizers describe as \u201cmusical mash-ups, klezmer-adjacent adventures, song parodies, unusual instruments\u201d and offering the forecast \u201cyou never know what will pop up in this clearing in the klezmer\/Yiddish jungle.\u201d The evening will feature Seattle neo-vaudevillian Mai Li Pittard, as well as local klezmer bands Kvells Angels and the Klezbians. A new klezmer ensemble, Kvells Angels, gave a concert last fall at the University of Victoria in which they performed works previously unavailable to musicians. The Klezbians, meanwhile, are a well-known band of \u201cchutzpah-licious\u201d musicians, and the group goes back many a year.<\/p>\n Victoria\u2019s Congregation Emanu-El, under whose auspices Klezcadia is being produced, will host the finale concert at the Cameron Bandshell, located in Beacon Hill Park. The closing concert will be a gift to the city in celebration of the congregation\u2019s 160th anniversary.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Festival organizers have made a concentrated effort to ensure that all participants enjoy a safe experience. The hybrid environment, they stress, will prioritize the well-being of immunocompromised and high-risk participants, for both those onstage and in the audience. Indoor activities will include protective protocols, such as supplemental air purification, required masking and daily onsite COVID testing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cKlezcadia was inspired by deep listening to an online meeting of immunocompromised and high-risk musicians and Yiddish-language enthusiasts in early 2023,\u201d Rosenberg said. \u201cDuring the first two years of the pandemic, they had finally felt included in the klezmer\/Yiddish community, since everyone\u2019s only option was to gather online.\u201d<\/p>\n The same groups felt marginalized again when most festivals returned to unmasked, in-person formats. Through dialogue with these groups, Rosenberg realized, Victoria had a chance \u201cto become a host community for an inclusive form of cultural tourism.\u201d<\/p>\n Rosenberg said her 45-year arts administration career came in handy when building a music festival from the ground up; she had already done so with two other festivals. It has been a year\u2019s worth of full-time work to plan the format, bring in the artists and teachers, scout venues, initiate community engagement and, importantly, raise the money.<\/p>\n Locals seem eager for the festival to start. \u201cI am optimistic based on expressions of pride I have heard from Victoria residents, on how quickly Klezcadia\u2019s in-person registration reached capacity and on the eagerness of local tourism-sector businesses to be included in our visitors\u2019 guide,\u201d Rosenberg said.<\/p>\n People from more than a dozen countries have signed up to view events streamed online.<\/p>\n