Josh Dolgin, aka Socalled, nearly singlehandedly dragged klezmer into the hip-hop era with his groundbreaking recordings, "HiphopKhasene" and "The So Called Seder: A Hip Hop Haggadah." With those two recordings and their melding of rapping and beat-heavy Jewish rhythms, modes and melodies with contemporary technological music forms including sampling, scratching and looping, Socalled virtually invented his own genre of klezmer, which he dubbed “hiphopkele.” Socalled joined forces with clarinet great David Krakauer and former James Brown sideman Fred Wesley for the klezmer-funk fusion project Abraham Inc.

Clarinetist Michael Winograd is one of the busiest young musicains on the scene. Having come up the ranks as a student at KlezKamp, studying with many of the pioneers of the klezmer revival and renaissance, Winograd is now himself a teacher as well as a musical trailblazer, whether he is leading his own ensembles in the United States or on European festival stages, or accompanying a who’s who of contemporary Yiddish musicians, including the late vocalist Adrienne Cooper, with whom Winograd performed at the Yiddish Book Center last year, or with Socalled, with whom Winograd performs in this concert in addition to leading his own group.

This event is part of Yidstock: the festival of new Yiddish music
at the Yiddish Book Center, July 11 - 15, 2012. Discounted festival passes available at yiddishbookcenter.org/yidstock.