ISLE of KLEZBOS approaches tradition with irreverence and respect. Based in NYC, this soulful, fun-loving powerhouse all-women’s klezmer sextet has toured from Vienna to Vancouver since 1998. Band repertoire ranges from rambunctious to entrancing: neo-traditional folk dance, mystical melodies, Yiddish swing and retro tango, late Soviet-era Jewish drinking song, re-grooved standards, and genre-defying originals.
Formed by drummer / leader Eve Sicular, ISLE of KLEZBOS features alumnae of Juilliard, Eastman and Manhattan Schools of Music as well as Harvard [VIEW band member bios], and has been honored with multiple awards by The New York State Council on the Arts, Outmusic, and Sparkplug Foundation.Various Klezbos bandmates have performed in Sicular’s musical documentary theater piece J. EDGAR KLEZMER: Songs from My Grandmother’s FBI Files, and several also play together in Metropolitan Klezmer (octet formed in 1994). From Seattle’s Bumbershoot to St. Louis’ Edison Theater to Spiegeltent at Bard, from Vienna’s Porgy and Bess to Joe’s Pub at NYC’s Public Theater, BAM Cafe to Brooklyn Museum’s First Saturday, Merkin Hall to Michigan Womyn’s Music Fest, National Yiddish Book Center to The Museum at Eldridge Street, Isle of Klezbos tours have lately brought the band to Berkeley Jewish Music Festival, Stanford University, and residency at Skidmore College. Fall 2012 debuts included Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts and our first Southern exposure: Tennessee Tech!
Links for presenters & promoters: Band Member Bios | One-sheet | Reviews | Press-Quality Photos
“These women will make you shake your tushies!”
— Village Voice
“Isle of Klezbos tests the elasticity of the genre”
— The New Yorker
“The absolute top of the klezmer genre”
— RootsTown, Belgium
“One of the finest young klezmer bands ever to appear on the block”
— Phat Planet, UK
“Paradigm-shifting, brilliantly tuneful klezmer group”
— New York Music Daily
“Internationally acclaimed and much-loved... We’d make a joke, but they beat us to it.”
— Time Out NY
“A supergroup... with an offbeat sense of humor and a relaxed sense of swing”
— George Robinson, Jewish Week
“Love your music!”
— Douglas W Smith, Producer: CBS News Sunday Morning
“Great ears and great hearts”
— Der Pakn Treger, National Yiddish Book Center
“Talent as strong as its name is provocative.
IoK is to Eastern European Jewish music what Cherish The Ladies is to Celtic”
— Courier News NJ
PHOTO CREDIT Angela Jimenez