Shtetl Band Amsterdam

Styles: Klezmer/Jewish

Holland's Shtetl Band Amsterdam is one of the premier Village style Klezmer ensembles today in Europe. The band performs often with Jewish story teller Walter Roozendaal, singer Lucette van den Berg, c-clarinettist Joep Hoefsloot and shtroyfidl xylophone player Marten van den Bijlaard. The festive mood and the energy of the music make audiences feel as if at a Jewish wedding!

Village Klezmer is expressive music from the rich culture of the Jewish shtetls, almost swept away, thought to have vanished, and now in the 21st century, fully back again.

The klezmer sound produced by large ensembles with many wind instruments is well-known. But for centuries a different klezmer sound predominated in Eastern European Jewish folk music, that of a small-town, small-band. With the violin's melody at the core, this group sound is mild, rich and nuanced. Groups and musicians like Budowitz, Di Naye Kapelye, Alicia Svigals and Veretski Pass have brought this older sound back into its own place in the klezmer spectrum, and now place it on the concert stage. In its short life Shtetl Band Amsterdam has also become an inspired and much in-demand exponent of this Village Klezmer style. The musicians play on instruments that match the sound of a village orchestra: small accordion and bas, a bass drum with an attached cymbal (poyk) and horn violin.

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