Seattle cellist Lori Goldston joins eminent klezmer accordionist/scholar Christina Crowder for the latest installment of their ongoing collaboration, exploring traditional Eastern European Jewish repertoire in a way that welcomes the past into the present. For this iteration they will be joined by violinists Mae Kessler and Shulamit Kleinerman.
Lori Goldston plays written, traditional and spontaneous work on cello, and works as a composer and prolific, widely varied collaborator. Classically trained and rigorously de-trained, her voice as a cellist is singular, deeply textured and original, investigating thresholds, instability, and connections between far-flung modes of thought. She travels throughout the US and abroad, often working in artist-run spaces, with an eye toward being a bridge between places, ideas, and communities. Well known for her work touring with Nirvana and contributing to their “Unplugged in New York” album, she works with composers, film makers, writers, theater directors, choreographers, visual artists, orchestras, and bands including Earth, BBC Scottish Symphony, Black Belt Eagle Scout, Ya Tseen, Judith Hamann, Mirah, David Byrne, Jessika Kenney, Lonnie Holley, Jacobo Benassi, Trimpin, Stuart Dempster, Shelley Hirsch, Michael Hurley, Gwen Laster, Melanie Dyer, Laura Cannell, Charles Hayward, Embryo, Ilya Scheyveys, Jooklo, Ghedalia Tezartes, Senga Nengudi, Ellen Fullman, Lynn Shelton, Terry Riley, and many, many others.
Christina Crowder has been performing and researching Jewish music for thirty years, beginning in Budapest, Hungary in 1993 as a founding member of Di Naye Kapelye, and continuing with a Fulbright grant to Romania to document Jewish music in 1999, and since 2002 with an active research, teaching, and performing career in the US. She is Executive Director of the Klezmer Institute, which has been awarded three NEH Grants for Institute projects (2021-2025). Christina lives in New Haven, Connecticut, and performs with the Zamlers Trio. She also performs with Michael Winograd and the Honorable Mentschen, the Dave Levitt Klezmer Trio and many others. She has been a guest instructor in klezmer accordion and ensemble performance in the US, Canada, and Europe, and was both musical director and performer in the 2019 Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the 2020 ART Portland productions of the Broadway play “Indecent.” With the Klezmer Institute, Christina edited the Levitt Legacy music folio, is curating a player folio of KMDMP music, and has led KMDMP artist residency programs in Arizona, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, France, and Belgium.