Isle of Klezbos to perform Feb. 23 on campus

Skidmore will welcome the Isle of Klezbos on campus Thursday, Feb. 23, for a special Jacob Perlow Series event:  a free concert at the college's Arthur Zankel Music Center. The concert will begin at 7 p.m. in Ladd Concert Hall. Free (required) tickets are available at the Zankel Music Center box office, or 518-580-5321. 

Based in New York City, the Isle of Klezbos bills itself as a "soulful, fun-loving power-house all-women's klezmer sextet." The band's repertoire ranges from rambunctious to entrancing: neo-traditional folk dance, mystical melodies, Yiddish swing and retro tango, late Soviet-era Jewish drinking songs, re-grooved standards, and genre-defying originals.Band members have been inspired by a kaleidoscopic array of styles, from klezmer to Cajun, funk, reggae, classical, punk, and Latin jazz. In 2003, the band released its debut full-length CD, Greetings from the Isle of Klezbos, which includes both studio tracks and live cuts from Joe's Pub and The Knitting Factory.

Band members are Melissa Fogarty, soprano; Pam Fleming, trumpet, flugelhorn, kudu player; Debra Kreisberg, clarinet and saxophone; Saskia Lane, bass; Shoko Nagai, accordion and piano; and Eve Sicular, drummer and band leader.

Sicular formed the group in 1998 and since then the band has toured from Vienna to Vancouver. Concert footage featuring Isle of Klezbos has been broadcast on CBS Sunday Morning, CNN WorldBeat, and In the Life, broadcast on PBS. The group's music has been featured on Showtime's The L Word, WFMU, Northeast Public Radio's "Live at the Linda" and on the film soundtrack for Grace Paley: Collected Shorts.

The band has earned critics' praise. A New Yorker review noted,"The all-woman klezmer outfit Isle of Klezbos tests the elasticity of the genre by mixing the traditional Jewish wedding music with merengue, swing jazz, and other diverse musical elements." 

Zoe Gemelli writes in The Village Voice,"Eclectic all-female klezmer sextet interprets Yiddish music like Madonna does Kabbalah: with a gay flare, inherited devotion and more than a smidgen of irony. The brainchild of drummer Eve Sicular, the Klezbos infuse jazz, trance and Latin grooves into traditional klezmer sounds. With wickedly funny Marga Gomez." Juliet Macey, in a Go Magazine review: "Isle of Klezbos matches musicianship with strong senses of both swing and humor, creating such diverse neo-traditional sounds as klezmer cumbia, transcendent originals, and songbook standards with Yinglish accents."

To reserve free tickets for the Feb. 23 performance, please visit the Zankel Music Center Web site.