At this concert the Jewish musical traditions of Central-Europe meet with those of the Transylvanian Rusin culture. Di Naye Kapelye (“The New Band”), led by the New York-born Bob Cohen, plays old-fashioned Yiddish tunes learned from old Jewish and Gypsy musicians. The group’s repertoire includes Hungarian, Romanian and Moldavian Yiddish melodies and traditional Hassidic music. Their concerts are occasions for dancing, celebration and remembrance. The success of Di Naye Kapelye on the alternative club scene, as well as at Jewish weddings and other Jewish events bears witness to just how alive and relevant traditional music can be even today. Jewish melodies also crop up in the performances of the Técső Band, along with Russian, Romanian, Gypsy and Hungarian tunes. The best-known group of musicians from Técső and the surrounding region on the bank of the upper Tisza play at weddings, funerals and traditional Rusin celebrations. The Csernavec brothers – the band’s accordionist, cimbalom player and drummer – come from a long line of distinguished Gypsy musicians. The band plays with such “exotic” instruments as the “bajan” (a type of button accordion), a portable cimbalom worn suspended from a neck strap, and the “plonka”, a small strip of plastic that the drummer plays by gripping it between his lower dentures and gums, blowing across it as one would a blade of grass, to both melodic and rhythmic effect.

Presented by: