Yale Strom is a violinist, composer, filmmaker, writer, photographer and playwright. He was a pioneer among revivalists in conducting extensive field research in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans among the Jewish and Roma communities since the early 1981. Initially, his work focused primarily on the use and performance of klezmer music among these two groups. Gradually, his focus increased to examining all aspects of their culture, from post-World War II to the present. Over more than 3 decades and 75 such research expeditions, Strom has become one of the world’s leading scholar-ethnographer-artists of klezmer music, history and culture. Since Yale’s first band began in 1981, he has been composing his own New Jewish music, which combines klezmer with Hasidic Nigunim, Roma, jazz, classical, Balkan and Sephardic motifs. Strom is also one of the only top composers of Jewish music to carry on the tradition of writing original songs, with Yiddish lyrics, about humanitarian and social issues.
Rabbi Sruli and Lisa are international Jewish music personalities who perform Klezmer, Hasidic, and Israeli music. They play the clarinet, violin, accordion, drum, bass, recorder, banjo, ukulele, noseflute, kazarp, and musical saw– some simultaneously– and have been featured on PBS-TV and National Public Radio. Rabbi Sruli Dresdner and Lisa Mayer have headlined at world music festivals from Poland to Germany to Israel to Canada and perform across the United States at festivals, theaters, synagogues and schools. The New York Times called their music “tuneful and sprightly” and The Los Angeles Times called Sruli and Lisa “superb musicians!”