Department of Music

Klezmer dance evening with the Strauss/Warschauer Duo and the UVA Klezmer Ensemble under the direction of Associate Professor and Director of Music Performance, Joel Rubin.

The event will feature traditional instrumental dance music, with folk dancing led by Deborah Strauss, alongside songs. For over twenty-five years, Deborah Strauss (violin, accordion, vocals, dance) and Cantor Jeff Warschauer (guitar, mandolin, vocals) have been at the forefront of the international klezmer and Yiddish music scene. They were both long-time members of the Klezmer Conservatory Band, one of the premiere groups of the klezmer revival, and have performed with legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman on film and in concert. As the Strauss/Warschauer Duo, they have performed to overwhelming acclaim in such diverse venues as the Philadelphia Folk Festival, Great Britain’s Fiddles on Fire, the Jewish Culture Festival in Cracow, Poland, and the Art of Yiddish in Los Angeles together with the late actor and singer Theodore Bikel.

Jeff Warschauer is Cantor at the Jewish Center in Princeton, New Jersey, and Founding Artistic Director and Senior Artistic Advisor of the KlezKanada Institute for Yiddish/Jewish Culture and the Arts. He is on the faculty of Columbia University in New York, and is a graduate of the H.L. Miller Cantorial School at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Deborah Strauss is also an award-winning children’s educator and a highly regarded Yiddish dancer and dance leader. She has performed with the Grammy-winning Klezmatics and appears in the film, Theodore Bikel: In the Shoes of Sholom Aleichem.

Now in its thirteenth year, the UVA Klezmer Ensemble has become a vital part of the musical community of Central and Northern Virginia, performing each semester in Old Cabell Hall as well as at conferences and festivals throughout the region. The ensemble is currently made up of undergraduates and other members of the greater Central Virginia community. The group is committed to ethnic, racial, cultural and religious diversity. Current and recent members have backgrounds from the US, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Lebanon, Armenia, Iran, Bangladesh, and India, with religious backgrounds ranging from Jewish to Christian, Hindu, Muslim, and Buddhist.

Tickets for the Klezmer Ensemble performance are $10 for adults, $9 for UVA faculty and staff, and $5 for students. Tickets for University of Virginia students are free if reserved in advance at the Arts Box Office www.artsboxoffice.virginia.edu. Tickets are available on-line (artsboxoffice.virginia.edu), by phone (434.924.3376) or in person at the Arts Box Office. Night of concert tickets will be available at the Arts Box Office in the Drama Building opposite the Culbreth parking garage and the Hunter Smith Band Building.  The box office will open at 7pm on the night of the concert.

The Hunter Smith Band Building is located at 180 Culbreth Road on the Arts Grounds at the University of Virginia. Parking for the concert is available at the Culbreth Road Parking Garage. (map)

Links:

Strauss/Warschauer Duo at the Kraków Jewish Culture Festival 2014

Strauss/Warschauer Duo, “To the Wedding”