The Columbia Klezmer Band was founded in 2000 and is directed by Jeff Warschauer, who is internationally renowned as a klezmer instrumentalist, Yiddish singer, and educator. "Klezmer is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim the genre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations. In the United States the genre evolved considerably as Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, who arrived between 1880 and 1924, came into contact with American jazz. During the initial years after the klezmer revival of the 1970s, the American sub-variety was what most people knew as klezmer, although in the 21st century musicians began paying more attention to the "original" pre-jazz traditions as revivalists including Josh Horowitz, Yale Strom and Bob Cohen have spent years doing field research in Eastern/Central Europe. Additionally, later immigrants from the Soviet Union took their surviving repertoires to the United States and Israel in the 1980s. Compared with most other European folk-music styles, little is known about the history of klezmer music, and much of what is said about it remains uncertain". Wikipedia
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