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Klezmer Starts Here

The Royal Room

Doors: 6:30pm Show: 7:30pm Tickets: $20 advance, $25 doors Advance tickets can only be purchased online-we do not sell advance tickets at the venue. Refunds are not available within 48 hours of the event. Tickets do not guarantee seating during shows at the Royal Room.  We are now accepting reservations for diners! After purchasing tickets, please visit the Reservations page to book a table. Table reservations require advance tickets, and are only for guests who plan to dine at the Royal Room.  We do not take reservations over the phone. Seating for non-diners is first come, first served. Please arrive early to guarantee a seat! The Royal Room is All Ages until 10pm.  This event is a benefit for Donkeysaddle Projects and their work with families in Gaza. Klezmer Starts Here! with The Klein Party, Kesselgarden, and other guests Klezmer Starts Here! is in its third year at Seattle’s Royal Room. Presented by The Klein Party and South Hudson Music Project, this curated series features local and national klezmer musicians exploring the breadth and depth of Yiddish music. The Klein Party celebrates and plays “Klezmerish music from All the Old Countries with a jazz sensibility and rock-and-roll exuberance.” The core of the repertoire are original arrangements of Ashkenazi Jewish music from the Old & New Worlds, as well as other music from around the world that shares the ecstatic joy and emotional intensity of the music we call “klezmer.” Over the past nine years, The Klein Party has played to thousands of enthusiastic listeners and dancers at the Royal Room, Pink Door, Northwest Folklife Festival, Washington Performance Center, Kirkland Performance Center, Vashon Center for the Arts, and many farmers’ markets, mitzvahs, holiday parties, picnics, seven consecutive International Ice Cream Day celebrations, and countless live streams. The Klein Party includes Sabrina Pope clarinet, Brandon Campbell saxophones, Stephanie Hsu violin, Eric Ray Anderson ukulele, Joseph J. Casalini bass, and Mark Lutwak accordion & piano. They will be joined mid-concert by Kesselgarden Klezmer Duo. Kesselgarden (Carl Shutoff clarinet & Laurie Andres accordion) have been playing together for over 20 years. “Kesselgarden” is how Yiddish-speaking Jews pronounced “Castle Garden,” a facility on the southern tip of Manhattan where Jewish immigrants entered this country prior to the opening of Ellis Island in 1892. Among first- and second-generation Jews, the term “Kesselgarden” was generalized to mean any situation that was noisy, confusing, or chaotic. Kesselgarden plays Eastern European instrumental Jewish music of the 19th and 20th centuries with original, sweet, and joyful arrangements which are neither noisy nor confusing. The concert will conclude with an orchestral arrangement of Herman Shapiro’s “European Jewish Wedding.” In the very early 20th century, the mysterious composer Herman Shapiro published this classical music suite that drew heavily on the klezmer tradition, combining traditional tunes and original composition to evoke a marriage celebration of Ashkenzai Jews. This suite only survived as a piano reduction. It was performed in full for perhaps the first time in over a hundred years at the Royal Room last spring and has been freshly arranged for an ensemble that includes The Klein Party, Kesselgarden, plus special guests Marc Gavin violin, Aaron Harmonson contrabass, and Duncan Weiner trombone. Klezmer Starts Here! is a curated series at Seattle’s Royal Room presented by The Klein Party and South Hudson Music Project, featuring local and national klezmer musicians exploring the breadth and depth of Yiddish music.