Hankus Netsky
Director, piano, accordion, saxophone
Hankus Netsky, a multi-instrumentalist and composer, is an instructor in jazz and contemporary improvisation at the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he has taught for twenty-three years (serving ten years as chairman of Jazz Studies). He is founder and director of the internationally renowned Yiddish music ensemble Klezmer Conservatory Band and serves as research director of the Klezmer Conservatory Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to research in and perpetuation of Yiddish music. Mr. Netsky has taught Yiddish Music at Hebrew College, New England Conservatory, and Wesleyan University and lectures extensively on the subject in the US., Canada, and Europe.
His Film Credits include The Fool and the Flying Ship, a Rabbit Ears children’s video narrated by Robin Williams, The Forward From Immigrants to Americans, and The Double Burden: Three Generations of Working Women. He adapted and composed the score to the musical Shlemiel the First (produced by the American Repertory Theater and American Music Theater Festival) and composed the incidental music for the NPR radio series, Jewish Stories From Eastern Europe and Beyond (produced by the National Yiddish Book Center). Other significant recent compositions include The Trees Of The Dancing Goats, for Rabbit Ears Radio (PRI) and his Suite for Mandolin and Strings, commissioned by the New Sinfonietta of Amsterdam. He also served as musical director and arranger for Joel Grey’s Borshtcapades ‘94, collaborated with violinist Itzhak Perlman on In The Fiddler’s House, a klezmer music video, recording, and touring project, and was artistic director for A Taste of Passover and A Taste of Chanukah two PBS and PRI concert productions featuring Theodore Bikel, taped at New England Conservatory. He was a consultant, arranger, and featured performer on To Life! America Celebrates Israel’s 50th broadcast internationally by CBS. He has produced numerous recordings including nine Klezmer Conservatory Band CDs.
Mr. Netsky has received numerous awards for his work, including an Outstanding Alumni award and the 1998 Lawrence Lesser award for excellence in teaching from New England Conservatory. He holds a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University and Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in composition from New England Conservatory.
Jim Guttmann
String Bass & Managing Director
For over 30 years Jim Guttmann has performed in a wide range of venues from smokey dives to Carnegie Hall. He joined the Klezmer Conservatory Band at its inception and as a member of the band has performed and recorded with Itzhak Perlman and Joel Grey. In addition to working with KCB he is currently performing klezmer music with Andy Statman, Alicia Svigals’ Klezmer Fiddle Express and Art Bailey’s Orkestra Popilar. He is a founding member of the Really Eclectic String Quartet and has worked with nationally renowned entertainers and musicians, including Eartha Kitt, Mark Murphy, Johnny Shines, James Cotton, Matt Glaser, Russ Barenberg and the Artie Shaw Band. For many years he performed with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra; in 1999, he premiered Gunther Schuller’s duet for trumpet & contrabass “Fantastical Colloquy.” He also served as the musical director and bassist for the Tufts University Jazz Festival’s Soul to Soul: A Tribute to Aretha Franklin.
Mr. Guttmann has studied performance with Edwin Barker and Dave Holland, harmony with Richard Cornell and techniques for improvisation with Charlie Banacos. He is a Grammy Award Nominee and the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant to study the arco solo tradition in jazz bass playing. He currently serves as Managing Director of the Klezmer Conservatory Band and the President of the Klezmer Conservatory Foundation.
Ilene Stahl
Clarinet
Ilene always wanted to play in a rock and roll band but “says she didn’t know” she picked the wrong instrument. Nevertheless, she’s been called the “Jimi Hendrix of klezmer clarinet” for her pyrotechnic performance style and soulful interpretations of traditional Yiddish music.
Ilene has been the clarinetist with The Klezmer Conservatory Band since 1987. She came to Boston immediately after graduating from Hampshire College where she did her Division III thesis, “Special Oy-fectsThe Art of Klezmer Clarinet.” With the KCB, Ilene has performed extensively throughout the United States and on all international tours. She has been featured on numerous recordings and on radio and TV broadcasts, including the Great Performances program “In The Fiddler’s House” with Itzhak Perlman as well as both recordings based on that collaboration. In 1998 Ilene founded Klezperanto – along with music director and accordionist Evan Harlan – to create a new kind of dance music that would combine the irresistible rhythms of zydeco, cumbia, funk, second-line, and Romanian brass band surf music with klezmer.
Ilene also teaches clarinet. Many of her students from Boston, Klezkamp, and KlezCanada have gone on to form klezmer bands of their own.
Yaeko Miranda-Elmaleh
Violin
Yaeko Miranda-Elmaleh grew up in Cambridge, MA and has played the violin since she was three. A finalist in the Boston Symphony Orchestra youth competition and First prize winner in the Arlington Philharmonic competition. She graduated from New England Conservatory in 2002 having studied and performed in the Jewish Music ensemble under the direction of Hankus Netsky. She currently performs and freelances in the Boston area.
Robin Miller
Flute, Piccolo
Robin Miller is a 36 year veteran of the KCB. She has performed on 8 of the bands’ 10 recordings and traveled extensively with the band. She plays a variety of flutes from around the world and enjoys improvising and accompanying modern dance. She is an accomplished classical and baroque flautist. She has a B.A. from Skidmore College and an M.Ed. from Harvard University. She has been an English and Drama teacher in the Newton Public Schools for the past 30 years. She lives in the Boston area with her family.
Mark Berney
Cornet
Mark Berney’s musical interests begin at the crossroads of jazz, classical, rock, and world music. After completing his studies in classical and jazz trumpet performance at the University of Oregon and touring on cruise ships across the globe, he joined the Klezmer Conservatory Band in time to record their critically acclaimed albums, “Dance Me to the End of Love” and “A Taste of Paradise.” With KCB, Berney has recorded and toured with Itzhak Perlman, collaborated with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and made numerous appearances on television and radio.
Berney appears on over 30 recordings, jumping with agility between genres. He can be heard on the recent Andy Statman release, “Monroe Bus” and has recorded and toured extensively with the Skatalites. He has also appeared in concert with Aretha Franklin, Jamie Cullum, and Slightly Stoopid. Berney is on the music faculty at University of Rhode Island, where he teaches courses on jazz and rock history, directs ensembles, and heads the jazz trumpet studio. He has been an adjudicator, clinician, and guest soloist around New England. Berney is an avid fitness enthusiast, which is reflected in his recent solo album of original compositions, “Longer and Stronger,” available on iTunes and all streaming platforms.
Mark Hamilton
Trombone
Mark Hamilton performs jazz, latin, pop and klezmer music on trombone, electric bass, steel drum, piano and percussion. He has appeared in Itzhak Perlman’s klezmer projects, In the Fiddler’s House and Eternal Echoes and performed with Itzhak on The Late Show with David Letterman. Mark is on the jazz faculty at Wellesley College and is the former Instrumental Music Director at a fancy Massachusetts independent school where his bands consistently won top honors at the International Association of Jazz Educator’s festivals. Both an arranger and composer, he specializes in klezmer and jazz music for concert bands and other ensembles. He created hamiltunes.org in order to publish this music and make it available for school and adult bands. A proud graduate of New England Conservatory and the University of Delaware, he is also a founding member of the ensembles Brass Planet and ¡Klezperanto!
Grant Smith
Drums, percussion
Grant Smith has studied drumset with Alan Dawson, Arabic drums with Jamie Haddad, tabla with Shashi Nayak, Afro-Cuban percussion with Enrique Pla, and Handance with Glen Velez. The Boston Globe calls him a “brilliant improviser.” The Boston Phoenix has noted his topflight “cross-genre ” abilities. Others note his sunny disposition. Grant has toured extensively, including Thailand, Australia, and both Europes. He is also a part of many world music, jazz, classical, orthodox, deconstructed, and free projects. Theatre and dance credits include the American Repertory Theater’s production of “The King Stag,” featuring a solo multi-percussion score (with staging and costumes by Julie Taymor) and movement works with Shakti Smith, Jane Wang, and Liz Roncka as well as his own choreography known as hogginsho.
Despite such high profile gigs as tympani with Itzhak Perlman, borscht drums with Joel Grey, and tabla with the Violent Femmes, Grant still insists that his biggest gig was the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade with Kermit the Frog and Big Bird. Fave color: green. Fave food: Jane’s.cookies. Vegetarian.
Eden MacAdam-Somer
Vocals, violin
Composer/performer/improviser Eden MacAdam-Somer is one of today’s most exciting and versatile artists. Hailed by the New York Times as reflecting “astonishing virtuosity and raw expression,” her music transcends genre through soaring violin, vocals, and percussive dance, weaving in and out of the many cultures that have formed her experience. She has been a featured soloist with symphony and chamber orchestras, jazz and swing bands, and Romanian, Jewish Music, and American folk ensembles.
Eden is a full-time faculty member at New England Conservatory, where she teaches improvisation and serves as Co-Chair of the groundbreaking Department of Contemporary Improvisation. She has been a guest artist at such institutions as the Afghanistan National Institute of Music and the Dundalk Institute of Technology, and a featured performer at the Eastbourne, Texas, and Beijing International Music Festivals. Her 2015 live solo album, My First Love Story, was listed as one of the top ten jazz albums of the year in the Boston Globe. She has written numerous works for solo performer on voice and violin, and has also received commissions by such groups as the New Gallery Concert Series, Cuatro Puntos Resident Artists, the Providence Mandolin Ensemble, and the AURA Ensemble. In addition to her work in Boston, Eden maintains an active international performance and recording career as a soloist and with such bands as Notorious Folk and the Klezmer Conservatory Band.Vocalist
John Servies
Sound Design & Audio Engineer
Percussionist and Audio Engineer/Producer John Servies, a Pensacola Florida native, currently lives in Arlington Massachusetts. He has been a music industry professional since 1974 working with both major and independent clients for local, national and international productions. John is the sound designer for and tours regularly with the internationally acclaimed Klezmer Conservatory Band. He served as co-producer and recording engineer for the band’s latest album, “A Taste of Paradise.”
Dana Parsons
Audio Engineer
Audio engineer Dana Parsons mixes KCB’s stage monitors. In addition to working KCB, he has mixed monitors for B.B. King, Arturo Sandoval and Taj Mahal.