Klezmer music and dance featured in free concert

Introductory lecture at 7:30 p.m. to be followed by concert and dance

Above, klezmer revival pioneer Hankus Netsky; on BrandeisNOW home page, famed Yiddish musician Michael Alpert.

"The Art of Klezmer and Yiddish Song," an event featuring the internationally renowned Yiddish singer, fiddler, and dance leader Michael Alpert and local klezmer revival pioneer Hankus Netsky, virtuoso klezmer clarinetist Zoe Christiansen and members of the Klezmer Conservatory Band, will be sponsored on Wednesday, Nov. 16, by the Center for German and European Studies in cooperation with the program in Yiddish and Eastern European Studies and the Department of Music.

The program in Slosberg Hall will begin at 7:30 p.m. with an introductory lecture, "Eastern European Jewish Musical Roots -- Still a Vital Wellspring." A concert will follow at 8:15 p.m., followed by a dance and refreshments for all. People of all ages are welcome to come and celebrate the renewal of traditional Eastern European Jewish culture. There is no charge.

Alpert is a founding member of the klezmer super-group Brave Old World and a former member of Kapelye.

Netsky is founder and director of the Klezmer Conservatory Band and music director for Itzhak Perlman's "In the Fiddler's House" and "Soul of Jewish Music" projects. He directs the Discovery Project at the National Yiddish Book Center and is chair of the Contemporary Improvisation Department at the New England Conservatory.

Christiansen is a student in the Contemporary Improvisation Department at the New England Conservatory.

Cosponsors include the Department of Music, the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry, the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, the National Center for Jewish Film, the Goethe Institut Boston, the Yiddish Committee of Boston Workmen's Circle and the Washington Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany.