Aaron Alexander is drummer based in NYC. He is leader of Midrash Mish Mosh and a member of Frank London's Klezmer Brass All-Stars, Greg Wall's Later Prophets, Alex Kontorovich's Deep Minor, Hasidic New Wave, Klezmerfest, and has had the privilege of working with the Klezmatics, Adrienne Cooper, German Goldenshteyn, Marilyn Lerner, Ray Musiker, Pete Sokolow, and Alicia Svigals.

Jeff Baker Jeff Baker is the secret identity of ska/reggae superhero King Django. His real name is Yitzchok Berel. Jeff is a touring performer, recording artist, producer and engineer with a long list of credits under his belt.  As a songwriter he has 125 titles registered with ASCAP.  He has been running his own record label and webstore www.stubbornrecords.com since 1992 and operating his Version City recording studio since 1997.  Jeff recently started a reggae 45s label in Kingston, Jamaica.   This will be his third year running the Version City Mobile Recording Studio at KlezKamp, and his 10th Kamp in a row.

Adrian Banner hails from Sydney, Australia, where he started studying piano at age three. Ever since, he has been immersing himself as a performer, composer, accompanist and arranger in a wide variety of musical styles including klezmer, jazz, ska, reggae, classical, show tunes, ragtime, and liturgical music. He is a founding member of The Klez Dispensers and plays keyboard in King Django's Roots and Culture Band.

Joanne Borts has had the good fortune to perform with many great klezmorim, including The Klezmatics, Khevrisa, Frank London's Klezmer Brass All-Stars and the Klezmer Conservatory Band. She's appeared on Broadway, off -Broadway and around the world in both English and Yiddish Theatre. Favorite new project: The Three Yiddish Divas.

Judith Bro Pinhasik joined Living Traditions in July 2006 with twelve years' experience in the fundraising field, focusing on health, education, environment, and the arts. For the past ten years, she has also been the pro bono fundraiser and member of the Jewish People's Philharmonic Chorus, which performs works entirely in Yiddish. An actor for fifteen years, Judy is also a fluent Yiddish speaker; her son, Joey, is learning Yiddish culture in the Workmen's Circle Midtown Shule and in KlezKamp.

Lauren Brody is an alumna of the pioneering klezmer revival band Kapelye, with whom she toured and recorded for over a decade, and is also a Yiddish singer well known for her unique old-world sound. Lauren leads a parallel life as a performer of the traditional music of Bulgaria and the Balkans, and has won a series of grants to conduct groundbreaking research in Bulgaria on early commercial folk music recordings.

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Sabina Brukner joined Living Traditions in July 2003, returning to the Yiddish world in which she has been active since childhood. She is a Yale Law School graduate, former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney, and former Director of Public Affairs for American Friends of The Open University of Israel. She spent eleven summers as a camper and counselor at Camp Hemshekh, a Yiddish summer camp run by the Jewish Labor Bund and is a native Yiddish speaker. She is especially proud of having played the puzzle on the air with Will and Liane on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday.

Mike Cohen is a sax, flute and clarinet player living and working in New York. Mike also leads the klezmer band The Kleztrafobix who have performed their esoteric form of klezmer recently opening for a concert by the Philadelphia Orchestra and Israeli Philharmonic at the Core Center arena in Philadelphia as well as concerts through out the Northeast. He also leads his own jazz quartet which can be heard performing around New York City.

Naomi Cohen is a soprano and music educator living in NYC. Her performing credits include opera roles at the Amalfi Coast Music Festival and the 2005 NYC Fringe Festival world premiere of the opera A.F.R.A.I.D. She has done extensive concert solo and ensemble singing in various venues, including Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall and St. John the Divine. She taught general and choral music at The Chapin School in NYC for 11 years before becoming the music director at the SAR Academy in Riverdale, NY this fall. She is thrilled to be working with the KlezKids again this year.

Adrienne Cooper is one of this generation's most influential performers of Yiddish vocal music, appearing on concert, theater, and club stages, recording, teaching and lecturing on Yiddish music around the world. In her day job she is Assistant Executive Director of the Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring.

Peggy/Khaye Davis will lead evening activities for children. She has taught at KlezKamp for many years and works as a calligrapher and graphic artist. She also plays flute in the Wholesale Klezmer Band.

Eleanor Epstein is the director of Zemer Chai, The Jewish Community Chorus of Washington, D.C., which she founded in 1976. Under her leadership, Zemer Chai has grown to become one of the nation's leading Jewish community choirs. Known as a master teacher with a gift for inspiring singers to connect deeply to both music and text, she is sought after as a guest conductor and artist-in-residence by choirs and congregations throughout the United States. Eleanor is also an accomplished arranger whose choral settings of Jewish folk melodies are performed throughout the world.

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Amber Feldman is happy to be returning to her fourth KlezKamp. She is currently the director of Cultural Arts and arts education for The Mayerson JCC in Cincinnati. Amber has her MFA in Theatre from the University of Texas at Austin where she also did her doctoral work in Performance studies focusing on Yiddish Theatre.

Felix Fibich is KlezKamp's most senior faculty member. His first memories of Jewish dance came from his early experiences at synagogue with his father, who was from the chasidic Modzitcher rebbe's court. At 22, Felix escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto into Russian territory. In Bialystok, he met up with his own dance teacher from Warsaw, Judith Berg, whom he married. After moving to the US, together they brought the world of traditional Yiddish dance gestures to a new audience. Felix is an accomplished actor and choreography with many Broadway, movie and television credits.

Pesakh Fiszman is a Yiddish teacher and storyteller from New York City. He was born in Argentina to parents of Ukrainian-Jewish descent but since the early 1980s he has been living in the USA. He has worked as a lecturer at several major New York institutions, including Columbia University, the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Workmen's Circle. Pesakh Fiszman teaches in his native tongue, Yiddish, throughout North America as well as all over Europe.

Jill Gellerman has danced, most recently with Frank London and Friends, and taught dance at many institutions--from Western Illinois University to Yiddish Summer Weimar. She has lectured and published on results from an NEH grant documenting hasidic dance and cultural traditions in Brooklyn. In addition to KlezKamp, Jill is a guest artist at YIVO’s Uriel Weinreich Program in Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture and at the annual Jewish Culture Festival in Cracow, Poland.

Jewishmusician.com bandleader Binyomin Ginzberg is a pianist, vocalist, and composer playing an eclectic repertoire of Jewish music, from old-school klezmer, to traditional and contemporary Israeli and Hassidic music for private parties, concerts, and recordings. An in demand bandleader, he's been flown around the world to play weddings and other celebrations. In addition to KlezKamp, Binyomin has also taught at Yiddish Summer Weimar.

Sarah Gordon is a Yiddish singer and lyricist who has performed with Frank London, The Klezmatics and Mikveh among others. Her song lyrics have been recorded by Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars, Mikveh, Khevre and The Klezmatics. At 5'2" she is one of the tallest female poets in the history of Yiddish Literature.

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Klezmer flutist and multi-instrumentalist Adrianne Greenbaum teaches through her fusion of historical sensibilities, dance, theory, old recordings and texts. Focusing on the revival of the flute in klezmer, she performs and teaches throughout the US, presenting master classes at universities and flute conferences and is also on the faculties of Klezkanada and Klezmerquerque.

For over 30 years bassist Jim Guttmann has performed in a wide range of venues from smokey dives to Carnegie Hall. He joined the Klezmer Conservatory Band at its inception in 1980 and as a member of the band has performed and recorded with Itzhak Perlman and Joel Grey. In addition to working with KCB he is currently performing klezmer music with Andy Statman, Alicia Svigals' Klezmer Fiddle Express.

Josh Horowitz is the director of Budowitz and co-founder of Veretski Pass. He performs on Tsimbl (Yiddish Dulcimer), 19th Century Button Accordion and Piano and has recorded with numerous ensembles, including the Vienna Chamber Orchestra. He has received over 40 international awards for his work, including the Prize of Honor for orchestral composition, presented by the Austrian government. His books include The Ultimate Klezmer and The Sephardic Songbook.

Judith Brin Ingber, choreographer and dancer, lived in Israel from 1972-1977 and worked with the Batsheva Dance company, was assistant to Sara Levi-Tanai, director of Inbal Dance Theatre and taught at Bat Dor. She frequently returns to teach, lecture and research. In addition to her performing, she also guests in the Department of Theater Arts and Dance at the University of Minnesota and writes extensively on Jewish dance.

Miriam Isaacs specializes in Yiddish language and researches Jewish sociolinguistics and Yiddish culture as a tool of identity and empowerment. She has explored the uses of Yiddish language among contemporary Hasidim and has recently written on the works of dramatist Peretz Hirschbein. She has also written on Yiddish culture in the Displaced Person's camps in postwar Germany. Dr. Isaacs has been teaching Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, since 1995. Her teaching includes basic Yiddish language and literature in the original and in translation, as well as courses on Yiddish theater and film, fantasy and the supernatural in Jewish literature and on the immigrant experience in Jewish and other literatures.

Don Jacobs is in charge of live sound and recording inside the Tanzhal. You can find out much more about him at his website: www.inconcertaudio.com. He is always happy to be a part of the Klezkamp whirligig!

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Jessica Kligman has worked as KlezKamp staff in the Epes Center since 1990. Jessica currently works as a New Jersey State-certified music teacher for the Middlesex Regional Educational Services Commission, teaching music to 11- to 21-year-old students with autism and multiple disabilities. She is the director of Music Together of Highland Park/Edison, a music and movement program for infants, toddlers, preschoolers and Kindergarteners, and their parents or caregivers. This is Jessica's second year helping out with the KlezKamp Oomchicks.

Bill Kornrich is a community cultural consultant, a descriptor that he dreamed up. He works with a variety of non-profit cultural organizations in the areas of organizational development, needs assessment, community partnerships, and long-range planning. He enjoys stage managing and getting people to work together. He and his wife, Yvonne, live on a ridge overlooking the Clinch River in east Tennessee.

Yosl (Joe) Kurland is a Yiddish singer, dance leader, story teller, badkhn, fiddler, ba'al tfile and Yiddish teacher. He has been performing with the Wholesale Klezmer Band in Western Massachusetts since 1982 for which he writes new songs and poems in Yiddish.

Heiko Lehmann is a Berlin/Germany-based musician, composer, producer, songwriter and translator. The list of klezmer bands he performed and recorded with includes Aufwind and Sukke, and he has toured with Kapelye, Budowitz, Willy Schwarz, Chicago Klezmer Ensemble and others. For Swiss and German publishers he has translated two of books by Canadian writer Michael Wex into German. His current musical project is "The Hazi Bros."

Jazz pianist/improviser Marilyn Lerner performs internationally, from her native Montreal to Havana, from Jerusalem to Amsterdam and the Ukraine. Lerner's work spans the worlds of jazz, creative improvisation, klezmer, and 20th century classical music. She composes for film, theatre, radio and television. Marilyn has just released her 10th recording, Romanian Fantasy, a solo CD of improvisations on traditional Eastern European Jewish music.

A familiar presence at KlezKamp since 1986, Susan Leviton brings her depth of knowledge, engaging teaching style, and infectious enthusiasm to all things Yiddish. She's an accomplished singer and calligraphic artist who travels as a performing artist-in-residence, sharing Yiddish culture and contemporary Jewish arts. Susan works her magic on commissioned artworks which range from greeting cards and ketubot to large scale wall art for synagogues, JCC's, and independent living centers. Whether in song or visual arts, her work is rooted in tradition and reaches forward to stretch the imagination.

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A founding member of Kapelye since the band's inception in 1979, clarinetist Ken Maltz has performed in hundreds of appearances on stage, television, radio and film throughout North America and Europe. One of the early pioneers of the klezmer revival, such diverse sources as The New York Times and The Berlin Morning Post have spoken of his performances in the most glowing terms. A veteran staff member, Ken has a devoted following of students throughout the world.

Sherry Mayrent came to her first KlezKamp in 1987, an accomplished clarinetist in styles other than klezmer. Within a few years, she transitioned from student to apprentice to Staff in 1995 and in 2001, as the Associate Director of Living Traditions and KlezKamp. Her KlezKamp experience led to her becoming the clarinetist and musical director of the Wholesale Klezmer band, the Western Massachusetts ensemble she joined in 1990. She recently left that group to concentrate her energies on the Living Traditions Online Sound Archive, of which she is co-director. She is also a record producer and a prolific composer of traditional klezmer tunes, and has published several books of klezmer charts, as well as creating a volume of traditional klezmer styles for PG Music's auto-accompaniment program, "Band in a Box." Her passion for traditional Yiddish culture is equaled only by her passion for traditional Hawaiian culture.

Throughout his career as a professional musician, Ray Musiker has worked to preserve Klezmer. Born in 1927 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Ray is the fourth generation in a family of Klezmer musicians. As a child, Ray learned to play Klezmer dance music at Jewish weddings. His parents, immigrants to America from Northern Russia, taught him about the wealth of Eastern European Jewish music. Ray plays saxophone, clarinet and flute. He taught music for 32 years, and recorded and performed extensively, in America and internationally.

Anita Norich is the Executive Director of the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan, where she is Professor of English and Judaic Studies. Her most recent book is Discovering Exile: Yiddish and Jewish American Literature in America During the Holocaust (Stanford, 2007). She is also the author of The Homeless Imagination in the Fiction of Israel Joshua Singer (Indiana University Press, 1991) and co-editor of Gender and Text in Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literatures (Harvard and JTS, 1992). She teaches, lectures, and publishes on a range of topics concerning Yiddish language and literature, modern Jewish culture, Jewish American literature, and Holocaust literature. She began teaching at Michigan after receiving her PhD in English Language and Literature from Columbia University and serving as a Lady Davis post-doctoral Fellow in Yiddish Studies at the Hebrew University. She has also been a Fellow at YIVO's Max Weinreich Center and at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. At Michigan, she has received several teaching awards and faculty recognition awards.

Dan Peck has been Operations Director for KlezKamp for the last 20 years. He is the creator of the EpesCenter. He is an accomplished old-time musician (banjo and guitar). A member of the Buck Mountain Band from Grayson County, Virginia, he produced their premier recording Moon Behind the Hills in 2007. He is also a published  photographer and author of books on databases and digital photography. He has worked for many years at traditional music festivals as a performer, photographer, stage manager and sound man. He is on the advisory board for the Charlie Poole Music Festival, the board of directors for the National Banjo Initiative in North Carolina and works at the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes.

Jenny Romaine is a founding member of Obie/Bessie winning Great Small Works theater collective, music director/ring performer in Circus Amok, and a member of the Folksbiene Yiddish Theater's Kids and Yiddish Crew. Romaine collaborates with an intergenerational army of artists committed to keeping new Yiddish theater at the heart of social life.

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Anne Rosenzweig is a prominent chef in New York City. Her restaurants include Arcadia, Lobster Club and Inside. She helped create the Fresh Start program for New York City prison inmates. She is known for her new take on traditional Jewish cooking.

Joyce Rosenzweig is a sought-after pianist, conductor, and specialist in Yiddish, Sephardic, and Israeli song literature, as well as Jewish liturgical music. She holds the title of Artist-in-Residence at Hebrew Union College - School of Sacred Music, where she has served as a faculty member for over twenty years, and is an instructor at the I. Miller Cantorial School of the Jewish Theological Seminary. She has served as Music Director of Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in Manhattan since 1994.

Mark Rubin was born to musician parents who met on the University of Arizona marching band and nurtured their son's connection to Judaism and his eclectic musical tastes. The bass and tuba instructor at KlezKamp, a radio and television host, and a music producer, the multi-talented Rubin is also one of the country's most versatile sidemen, adept at a variety of musical style and traditions. He is a founding member of the Bad Livers and has toured internationally with Frank London's Klezmer Brass All-Stars.

Pete Rushefsky is a leading performer of the tsimbl (Jewish hammered dulcimer) and an innovator in developing a klezmer performance style for 5-string banjo. He concertizes internationally with Adrianne Greenbaum, Steven Greenman, Rebecca Kaplan, Joel Rubin and Alicia Svigals. Pete serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Traditional Music and Dance in New York.

Henry "Hank" Sapoznik is a four-time Grammy nominated record producer, radio documentarian, author and performer of traditional Yiddish and American music. He won a 2002 Peabody award for his 10 week National Public Radio series "The Yiddish Radio Project" and was nominated for an Emmy for his score to the documentary film "The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg." He is a producer for Time-Life Music and is currently working on establishing a National Banjo Museum.

Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman is a Yiddish poet, songwriter and singer. She was awarded the National Heritage Award in 2005 by the National Endowment for the Arts, and was inducted into the People's Hall of Fame of NYC by CityLore and Museum of the City of New York. Her newest CD "Fli Mayn Flishlang" includes her original Yiddish children's songs.

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Andreas Schmitges has been an active member of the klezmer scene for almost a decade, working in this field as a musician, author, researcher and dancer. Andreas, a fluent Yiddish speaker, has worked as a teacher for Yiddish Dance at Festivals in London, Kiev, Odessa and Weimar and has given concerts, dance- and Klezmer-workshops at festivals of Jewish and Yiddish culture in Europe, including London, Amsterdam, Enschede, Berlin, Munich, Gelsenkirchen and Weimar. Andreas has performed in Paris, London, Washington D.C. and Amsterdam with his bands ÔA Tickle In The Heart' and ÔKlezmer Alliance'. His highly successful collaboration with Yiddish storyteller and teacher Pesakh Fiszman in a Yiddish Music & Language Programme has won high acclaim.

Cookie Segelstein plays fiddle with Hank Sapoznik (who finally served her decent barbecue) and Mark Rubin in The Youngers of Zion, is founder of the trio Veretski Pass with Joshua Horowitz and Stu Brotman and plays in Budowitz. With a Master's degree from the Yale School of Music, Cookie plays with the New Haven Symphony as assistant principal viola, and generally plays any kind of music she can to make a living.

Jake Shulman-Ment is among the premier young performers of klezmer violin. He has performed and recorded with many of the stars of the international klezmer scene, as well as with his own groups. Proficient in a variety of styles, Jake has travelled extensively in Hungary, Romania, and Greece documenting, recording, and performing traditional folk, Gypsy, and Jewish music.

Peter Sokolow has had a career in Jewish music, commercial music, and traditional jazz that has spanned over fifty years; he has done more than 10,000 jobs in that time. He has performed with many famous klezmer and jazz players, toured Europe and the U.S. several times, orchestrated three Jewish shows and more than thirty recordings, and appeared in or arranged for several TV "specials"and documentary films. He is the author or co-author of books on klezmer and articles about the klezmer scene, and has lectured extensively. He has taught at KlezKamp since its inception.

Vera Sokolow's connection to Jewish textile art began with membership in the Pomegranate Guild of Judaic Needlework and flourished after she crocheted her first yarmulke, designing a keyboard motif for her husband, Peter. Using a multiplicity of hand and machine techniques (e.g. quilting, applique and embroidery), she has since produced challah covers, Purim napkins, more yarmulkes, kittels, shofar bags, wall hangings and several chuppahs.

A driving force behind the neo-klezmer movement since its inception in the early 1980s, Andy Statman remains an extraordinary paradox: a musician devoted to musical tradition who also continues to break new artistic ground. A celebrated mandolin player in the "Newgrass" movement of the 1970s, Andy Statman has reinvigorated yet another realm of traditional musicmaking - klezmer - with his own particular blend of virtuosity, and originality. Acknowledged among the most authoritative of klezmer revivalists, Andy Statman was the pupil of master clarinettist Dave Tarras, who bequeathed his instruments to Statman when he died.

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Eric Stein is a versatile multi-instrumentalist (mandolin, cimbalom, bass) and a prominent figure in Canada's Jewish music scene. He is founder/leader of the acclaimed group Beyond the Pale, with whom he has toured extensively and won a number of awards, and he also performs with Socalled, Hu Tsa Tsa, the Toronto Mandolin Orchestra, and Electric Meat. He moonlights as the Artistic Director of Toronto's Ashkenaz Festival.

An internationally acclaimed klezmer violinist and teacher, Deborah Strauss is a member of the Strauss/Warschauer Duo and was a long-time member of the Klezmer Conservatory Band and the Chicago Klezmer Ensemble.

Perl (Paula) Teitelbaum has taught Yiddish at KlezKamp since 1987. She is also a singer featured on the recordings Vaserl, Zumerteg, Di Grine Katshke (co-produced with Lorin Sklamberg), and most recently, Fli, mayn flishlang. Her Yiddish-speaking daughters, Shifra and Leah, love Klezkamp.

Jeff Warschauer is internationally renowned as a guitarist, mandolinist, Yiddish singer and teacher. He is a member of the Strauss/Warschauer Duo, was a long-time member of the Klezmer Conservatory Band, and is on the faculty of Columbia University.

Elaine Hoffman Watts is a third-generation klezmer musician, scion of the great Philadelphia Hoffman family of klezmorim. The first woman percussionist to be accepted at Curtis Institute, from which she graduated in 1954, Watts has performed and taught for more than forty years, working in symphonies, theaters, and schools. Despite her skills and family heritage, when she was young Ms. Watts was seldom given opportunities to perform by klezmer bands, from the 1940s on: they didn't want to employ a girl, even Jacob Hoffman's daughter. Ms. Watts began performing klezmer actively again with her daughter Susan Watts. She is a 2007 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowship Award.

Susan Watts represents the youngest generation of a Klezmer dynasty that reaches back to the Jewish Ukraine of the 19th century, beginning with her great grandfather, bandleader Joseph Hoffman. She works and records with a range of talented musicians including her mother Elaine Hoffman Watts, Frank London and the Klezmer Brass All-Stars, Mikveh, anad the KlezDispensers.

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Steve Weintraub is a teacher, choreographer, and performer specializing in Jewish dance. He received his training with Alvin Ailey and Erick Hawkins, and danced for Felix Fibich. He teaches Yiddish dance workshops internationally, leads dancing at Simchas, and collaborated on Hopkele, a cd of music especially for dancing

Laura Wernick is a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan's Joint Doctoral Program in Social Work and Political Science. She is currently working on her dissertation on social justice philanthropy and young donor organizing. More specifically, she is exploring the role of young people with wealth in social justice movements.

Author of Born to Kvetch and Just Say Nu, an overnight sensation at 52, Michael Wex has been teaching at KlezKamp longer than anyone cares to remember. Novelist, playwright, lecturer, performer and authority on language and literature, Wex has been called "a Yiddish National Treasure" and "the finest translator around."

A professional actress, voice-over artist and corporate training consultant for over ten years Marilla Wex first came to KlezKamp from England in 2000 and seemingly never left. She is very proud to be a co-director of the Klezkids program and co-writer of the Klezkids play with her husband Michael. She was not born to kvetch.

Adam Whiteman began papercutting almost 20 years ago in KlezKamp under Tsirl Waletzky. His paper cut illustrations have been featured in the Grine Katshke CD, Mume Blume, a Yiddish children's book by Beyle Gottesman, and a number of web sites. He has also exhibited at Ashkenaz. When he isn't papercutting, he is a Wall Street financial consultant working with the airport industry.

Clarinetist Michael Winograd is based in Brooklyn, NY and has taught and performed internationally. He has played with Frank London, Alicia Svigals, Socalled, Joe Morris, Kenny Wollesen, and Jenny Romaine to name a few. Michael's favorite color is purple and he enjoys kreplekh and green tea on the weekends.

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