Eighth Graders Experience the Thrill of a Private Klezmer Music Concert

As a fascinating supplement to the eighth graders' unit on the history of jazz music, they received a visit from a real klezmer band! The band performed a private concert for the students, showing them the joy and dynamism of the genre and pausing between songs to discuss with the students. The musicians traced the origins and evolution of klezmer in an anthropological and sociological sense, as well as explaining key characteristics of the genre and how these developed over time. They also drew connections between the features of klezmer and jazz and taught the students how these communities and their music influenced each other. Students were fascinated by the music performance as well as the content of the discussion and asked plenty of questions of their own!