Alex Parke’s NYC Kapelye (ensemble in Yiddish) brings klezmer aficionados from the NYC area to play in a traditional klezmer ensemble. This edition of Parke’s NYC Kapelye features Parke on clarinet, bringing his vast knowledge and repertoire of the klezmer style, alongside NYC’s top tsimbl player, Peter Rushefsky. The duo will be interpreting a carefully curated selection of music that encompasses a wholesome presentation of the Klezmer tradition.
Alexander Parke is a clarinetist, ethnomusicologist, and composer working in NYC, mainly known for Klezmer and Brazilian music. He has performed with musical luminaries, including Frank London, Michael Winograd, Jake Shulmament, Christina Crowder, Ilya Shneyveys, Peter Rushefsky, and other great musicians of the klezmer world. Parke mainly works as a freelancer in NYC and has been part of various musical projects, gaining recognition for his musicality and musical intention.
Pete Rushefsky is an award-winning composer and leading performer of the Jewish tsimbl (cimbalom or hammered dulcimer). Rushefsky tours and records internationally with violinist Itzhak Perlman as part of the Klezmer Conservatory Band. He collaborates with many leading figures in the contemporary klezmer scene, including Andy Statman, Lisa Gutkin, Adrianne Greenbaum, Steven Greenman, Joel Rubin, Eleonore Biezunski, Michael Alpert, Madeline Solomon, Zhenya Lopatnik, Zoe Aqua, Alex Parke, Jake Shulman-Ment, Keryn Kleiman, Eleonore Weill, and Michael Winograd. A founder of the Yiddish New York Festival, since 2006 he has served as Executive Director of the Center for Traditional Music and Dance, one of the nation’s leading organizations sustaining diverse immigrant music traditions from around the world. Rushefsky curated the Yiddish program at the 2013 Smithsonian Folklife Festival and has authored a number of articles and books on traditional music and culture. He won the Jewish Music Institute (IMJ Sao Paulo’s) 2022 Bubbe Award for best new klezmer composition.
Summer Thursdays – 7:00 PM at the Museum of Jewish Heritage
With beautiful music and brilliant storytellers, dinner and drinks on offer from LOX Cafe, and incredible views of New York Harbor, we hope you’ll join us as The Museum comes alive on Thursday evenings.
The Museum is free and open to all on Thursdays from 4:00 to 8:00 PM, and LOX will serve Jewish and Russian fare and drinks before and during the events. Currently on view: The Holocaust: What Hate Can Do, Survivors: Faces of Life After the Holocaust, and Andy Goldsworthy’s Garden of Stones.
Please note these are in person only events and will not be livestreamed or recorded.