SASHA LURJE

Yiddish psychedelic rock band forshpil was formed in Riga, Latvia in 2003. Today the band's music is a fusion of Yiddish songs, Hassidic nigunim and klezzmer tunes with 1960s-1970s rock, spiced up by funk, jazz and raggae. 

This is what it would have sounded like if Pink Floyd and The Doors had ever jammed together at a Jewish wedding.

Directed by Alan Bern this group features some of the leading Yiddish musicians and recreates the sound of Jewish Berlin in the 1930s.

YSKFI is an international klezmer band from Berlin playing traditional Jewish dance music and Yiddish songs. After having played at many renowned festivals and synagogues in Europe and North America, its members unite to bring you on an emotional journey into Yiddishland. 

Goyfriend, a new collaboration between celebrated Latvian singer Sasha Lurje and Brooklyn-based klezmer band Litvakus led by Zisl Slepovitch. This new program offers a unique window into the dialogue between Jewish, Slavic and Baltic cultures. This diverse project explores the image of the Jews and their representations in the folk culture of their neighbors over 600 years of common history.

Lebedik is a family of collaborations by Sasha Lurje and Craig Judelman exploring various facets of Yiddish song.   Joined by some of the best musicians in their field, they travel with the songs from Eastern Europe to the West, From the Old World to the New and explore the transformations that they experience on the way. 

A moving program by Lorin Sklamberg, Sasha Lurje & Craig Judelman, exploring the portrayal of social change in Yiddish and American songs. Composer Craig Judelman created original and rousing arrangements of Yiddish songs ranging from folk to 1920s Yiddish Theater and protest songs, to the modern repertoire and American protest songs for a string ensemble.  Sklamberg, Judelman and Lurje also perform as a trio. 

...strange love, strange songs, strange tongues.

The Specialists for Desire Daniel Kahn and Sasha Lurje invite you to their program of the most beautiful malicious songs. Laugh yourself to death when you hear about lovesickness, lust, murder, nature and weltschmerz, in English Yiddish, Ukranian and Russian. 

Since 2006 Sasha hasn't missed a year at Yiddish Summer Weimar. From a student, she grew into leadership roles, and now for years has been teaching and directing the Yiddish Song workshop. YSW has been an essential inspiration for a lot of Sasha's creative work as well as a place of growth and learning for her and many other artists in different genres and disciplines. 

Shtetl Neukölln is a young Berlin festival celebrating Yiddish music and culture. Built on the success of the now gloriously famous Neukölln Klezmer Sessions, the festival is run by an international community of acclaimed artists.

In 2019 Sasha Lurje and Craig Judelman started a young Yiddish festival in Seattle to promote Yiddish culture in the Pacific North West and facilitate growth within the local communities. The festival has been a success and is coming back to Seattle in 2020.

Yiddish Kultur Voyages was established to create immersive Jewish Heritage tours that explore destinations alongside leading interpreters of Yiddish music and teachers of Yiddish culture and history.

Exploring the destinations where Yiddishkeit thrived while experiencing the bounty of this rich culture through live performance, evokes images of the time when this culture was among the most vibrant and creative in the world.

Sasha Lurje is the artistic director of the project.