Shpil: The Art of Playing Klezmer is both a history of this popular form of traditional Jewish music and an instructional book for professional and amateur musicians. Since the revival of klezmer music in the United States in the mid-1970s, Yiddish songs and klezmer dance melodies have served as the soundtrack for a resurgence of interest in Ashkenazic Jewish culture across the globe. Klezmer has taken root not only in America s major urban centers New York City, Chicago, San Francisco but also in emerging Jewish music hotspots like St. Petersburg, Buenos Aires, Krakow, and Tokyo. Its high energy, emotionally driven sound, and evocative Yiddish lyrics have found audiences everywhere. Shpil offers an expansive history of klezmer, from its medieval origins to the present era, and its contributors encompass a cast of world-renowned musicians who have recorded, performed, and studied klezmer for years. Individual chapters concentrate on the most common instruments found in a klezmer ensemble violin, clarinet, accordion, bass, percussion, and voice and conclude with a selection of three songs that illustrate and exemplify the history and techniques of that instrument. Shpil includes a glossary and a discography of both classic and new klezmer and Yiddish recordings, all designed to guide readers in an appreciation of this remarkable musical genre and the art of playing and singing klezmer tunes. Shpil: The Art of Playing Klezmer is ideal for amateur enthusiasts, musical scholars, beginning artists, and professional musicians, both solo and ensemble indeed, anyone who wants to experience the joy of listening to and playing this thousand-year-old folk music.

When Ziske's klezmer band is invited to play at a wedding in Pinsk, they arrive to discover many of the people in the town very sick. But tradition says that if two orphans get married in a cemetery a miracle may happen, so Ziske sets his mind to finding the perfect couple.

A Wandering Feast is a delightful book that welcomes the reader to a wonderful journey through the Jewish culture of Eastern Europe. Page after page, you will visit the still-vibrant Jewish world and discover Yiddish folkways, toe-tapping klezmer music, and heart-warming traditional food. Yale Strom and Elizabeth Schwartz have documented an amazing journey-organized around visits to authentic cities and villages in Eastern Europe-with a fascinating travelogue that includes inspiring stories, photographs, music, and recipes. A Wandering Feast reveals that a culture long feared to be gone forever is still very much alive.

"A Wandering Feast is rambunctious, festive, enlightening and . . . yes, tasty."
-Ilan Stavans, author, On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language

"Captures, preserves, contectualizes, and celebrates life."
-Annette Insdorf, author, Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust

"A vehicle for an evocation and examination of his personal odyssey, and ultimately of Jewish history and identity."
-Eva Fogelman, author, Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust

"Strom proves himself a master storyteller and archivist of the lost Jewish worlds of post-Holocaust Europe."
-Thane Rosenbaum, the author of The Golems of Gotham, Second Hand Smoke, and Elijah Visible