More KlezMore please!

Well, looks like I just made it these past two weeks, packing it in with the culture. Apart from the theatre this week, last week I still had a chance to see (and photograph, with permission) a double concert during Vienna´s 18th KlezMore Festival (6-21 November 2021) at various venues around town.

Oscar Antoli is a multitalent, playing guitar, and various clarinettes, and probably something else too! He was playing with Milos Todorovski (accordeon, an instrument I am exceedingly fond of) at the Ehrbar Saal last week.

While each of them has multiple musical projects, together they form the duo Milos & Oscar’s Folkoteque. I´ve always had a penchant for folky and fusion music of all kinds, so this was just my kind of thing. I have to admit that it was my first visit to a performance of the KlezMore Festival. It will not be my last! The duo announced that they will also be playing during the Accordeon Festival in Vienna next year, something not to be missed.

The KlezMORE Festival highlights Klezmer or “Klezmeresque” music, rooted in an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, but which has evolved over time to include traditional and experimental forms of the genre.

The other ensemble I got to see and hear that evening was Scheiny’s All Star Yiddish Revue. The band plays an entertaining repertoire from traditional Jiddish songs, a pinch of modern klezmer, Jewish swing from the 40s, 50s and 60s and some comical pieces with a lot of theatrics. The singer and comedian Deborah “Scheiny” Gzesh is brilliantly accompanied by Thomas Berghammer on the trumpet and Muamer Budimlić on the accordion, as well as drums and bass players Paul Skrepek and W.V. Wizlsperger.

All photos © Karin Svadlenak-Gomez