Gregori Schechter's Klezmer Festival Band

GREGORI SCHECHTER, born in 1957 in Khabarowsk, near Vladivostok, former Soviet Union, showed remarkable musical talent from a young age. After graduating as a classical clarinetist from the Tchaikovsky-College at Alma-Ata, but with Klezmer as his first love, he toured extensively throughout the Soviet Union. He left there in 1987 for Israel where he was once more in great demand for his musical skill. From Israel he moved to the UK where he formed the KLEZMER FESTIVAL BAND with the assistance of the Jewish Music Heritage Trust. The Klezmer Festival Band made their debut to a sell-out concert at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall in 1991. lt would be impossible to capture fully the athmosphere of the concert and the sheer amazement and enthusiasm of the audience who realized that this was a major new talent emerging onto the music scene in Britain. The band soon became one of the hottest properties for many major folk festivals around the UK.

Following their successful debut the band were invited to play on the BBC Radio 4 arts programme “Kaleidoscope” and were the only British band to be featured in a BBC 2 television programme “Fiddler on the Hoof", an anthology of Klezmer music around the world, from the series “Rhythms of the World”. Klezmer is about interpretation of the music. The instrument does the talking. With Gregori we have a true master; his clarinet sometimes singing sweetly, sometimes racing along at breathtaking speed. Perhaps Gregori’s most fascinating contribution is his vast first-hand knowledge of all types of Jewish music. From him we can learn about that which was so very nearly lost - and joyfully celebrate its rediscovery.