Hello Blogosphere, Lviv Journal

Hello everyone! We're excited to share this blog with you - it will be a forum for news, updates, photos and more. For now, here are some photos and videos from our recent performances at the Klezfest in Lviv, Ukraine in July 2011.

Lviv is truly amazing, an unspoiled gem of great cultural, historical and architectural significance. The city has had a proud history as the capital of Galicia, and can hold its own with any large European city in terms of atmosphere. Yet it also has an untouched quality, and hardly any international retail merchants have set up shop. This lends the main streets a distinct feeling of individuality.

Charming cafes beckon everywhere, nestled between imposing churches and beautiful buildings.

Here the men in the band are looking cool (or about as cool as a Jewish music band can be) while checking out our performance space at the feet of the castle battlements.

Yoni and Yarden escaped the sound check to jam with some Eastern European musicians in a nearby square...

While Amira and Carmel went sightseeing

These great photos were taken by a fellow musician whom we met at the festival, Piotr Menachem Mirski from Lublin. His band the Klezmaholics are really groovy, and their metal-inspired rendition of Gesher Zar Meod was unexpectedly raw and moving. Check out their website at www.klezmaholics.jud.pl or read more about Piotr (who is also a philosopher by profession) here.

The concert itself was a very special affair, an outdoor marathon of about 15 bands. We were slated to go at the end, and it started to rain. However, the audience remained firmly in place, umbrellas in hand, and we shared a very special concert, accompanied by a light drizzle and the feeling of history which permeates the old Jewish Quarter in Lviv.

We met so many amazing musicians at the festival - just to mention a few: there were two local singers in their early 90s who were freakishly good: Arkadi Gendler and Alfred Schreyer, as well as a charismatic duo from Moldova, Efim Chorny and Susan Ghergus, and Berlin-based clarinet legend Christian Dawid.

A photo from the concert, courtesy of Amira:




A few youtube videos of our concert can be found here:

Special thanks to the indefatigable Tanya for organizing our tour, and to Veronica for being our very thorough chaperone...we hope to see you all again soon!