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Evan Harlan, accordion, piano, music director Mark Hamilton, trombone Brandon Seabrook, banjo, mandolin, guitar Jorge Roeder, bass Grant Smith, drums, percussion |
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Ilene always wanted to play in a rock and roll band but "says she didn't know" she picked the wrong instrument. Nevertheless, she's been called the "Jimi Hendrix of klezmer clarinet" for her pyrotechnic performance style and soulful interpretations of traditional Yiddish music. She founded Klezperanto in 1998 - along with music director and accordionist Evan Harlan - to create a new kind of dance music that would combine the irresistible rhythms of zydeco, cumbia, funk, second-line, and Romanian brass band surf music with klezmer. Ilene has also been the clarinetist with The Klezmer Conservatory Band since 1987. She came to Boston immediately after graduating from Hampshire College where she did her Division III thesis, "Special Oy-fects: The Art of Klezmer Clarinet." With the KCB, Ilene has performed extensively throughout the United States and on all international tours. She has been featured on numerous recordings and on radio and TV broadcasts, including the Great Performances program "In The Fiddler's House" with Itzhak Perlman as well as both recordings based on that collaboration. Her musical theater experience includes the world premiere of The American Repertory Theater production of "Shlemiel The First", and "Borschtcapades" with Joel Grey. Ilene also teaches clarinet. Many of her students from Boston, Klezkamp, and KlezCanada have gone on to form Klezmer bands of their own. Sometimes they call her when they need to sub out a gig.
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Evan has recorded and performed internationally with several jazz and "world music" ensembles including Dave Douglas, the Klezmer Conservatory Band and the Mili Bermejo Group. His own quartet, Andromeda, plays original music with the flavors of tango, gypsy, and other passionate traditions. From 1995-2000, Mr. Harlan's group Excelsior played unorthodox arrangements of 20th century composers' works. In addition to performances throughout New England, their CD Declassified was featured on WGBH radio's internationally distributed Art of the States, WGBH/BBC's The World, WBUR's The Connection and Here & Now. Mr. Harlan is the recipient of a 2001 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Grant in Music Composition; he has scored numerous works for film, dance and theater. In addition he has played on the soundtracks of Sidney Lumet's A Stranger Among Us and John Sayles' Lone Star. In 2001 he performed in the orchestra with Luciano Pavarotti at the Fleet Center in Boston, and has been featured in Hovanhess' Rubaiyat and Hindemith's Kammermusik 1. As conductor in musical theater, he has led Shlemeil the First at the American Repertory Theater, Fiorello at Brandeis University, and Happy End at Boston University.
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Mark has been playing the trombone ever since the fourth grade, the same year he won a dixie cup for performing I Love You Truly the best in his class. Since those early beginnings, Mark has performed all over the world and recorded nine CDs as a member of the Klezmer Conservatory Band. He is a busy freelancer and has performed with Joe Williams, Itzhak Perlman, Victor Borge, Robin Williams, and Joel Grey among others. A talented educator, Mark is on the jazz faculty at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Michigan and is the former Instrumental Music Director at a fancy Independent School in central Massachusetts where his bands consistently won top honors at the International Association of Jazz Educator's festivals. Both an arranger and composer, he specializes in klezmer and jazz music for concert bands and other ensembles. Mark created a publishing company to make this music available for such groups, hamiltunes.com. As if this is not enough, Mark is also a proud graduate of the New England Conservatory and the University of Delaware. He is a founding member of Klezperanto. |
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Brandon has toured and recorded with Paul Brody's Sadawi and the Klezmer Conservatory Band. He is influenced by John Bonham, Morton Feldman, Bjork and The Minutemen. |
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Jorge Roeder was born in Lima, Peru in 1980. Most recently, he was
awarded first prize in the 2007 International Society Of Bassists Jazz
Competition. At the age of 14, he began studies on cello and electric
bass. Two years later, he was invited to study cello at the Rimsky
Korsakov Conservatory in St. Petersburg, Russia. After taking up the
double bass, Jorge became assistant principal bassist of the Lima
Philharmonic and Opera orchestras for the 2001 and 2002 seasons. In
1999, Jorge became part of the New Music Youth Orchestra, which is
dedicated to the development of jazz in Peru. In 2001, Jorge toured
with the orchestra throughout the eastern U.S. and played at the
International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE) annual conference in
New York. Moving to Boston in 2002, Jorge received a scholarship from
the renowned New England Conservatory of Music, and began studies with
Cecil McBee, John Lockwood, Danilo Perez, Oscar Stagnaro, Jerry
Bergonzi, Bob Moses and Dominique Eade. Jorge has recently performed
with jazz greats such as Alex Acuna, Bob Brookmeyer, Russell Ferrante,
Roy Haynes, Steve Lacy, Harvey Mason, Bob Moses, George Russell, Maria
Schneider, Gunther Schuller, Steve Turre, Bill Watrous, Kenny Werner
and Kenny Wheeler. Since 2007, he lives and works actively in New York
City. |
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Grant Smith studied drumset with Alan
Dawson, Arabic drums with Jamie Haddad, tabla with Shashi Nayak,
and Afro-Cuban percussion with Enrique Pla. The Boston Globe
calls him a "brilliant improviser." The Boston Phoenix
has noted his topflight "cross-genre " abilities. Ilene
notes his sunny disposition. Grant has toured extensively, including
Thailand, Australia, and both Europes. A member of the Klezmer
Conservatory Band, he is also a part of many world music, jazz,
classical, orthodox, deconstructed, and both free projects. Theatre
and dance credits include the American Repertory Theater's production
of "The King Stag," featuring a solo multi-percussion
score (with staging and costumes by Julie Taymore) and movement
works with Shakti Smith, Jane Wang, and Anika Tromboldt Kristensen
as well as his own choreography known as hogginsho. |
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