SASHA LURJE
SINGER
Projects
Sasha is involved in multiple groups and projects as a performer, but also as organiser. Here is a list of her more permanent involvements
Bands and performing projects
forshpil
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.
Lebedik
The journey of Yiddish song from its home in Eastern Europe to New York’s Lower East Side. This collaboration between celebrated Latvian singer Sasha Lurje and American violinist extraordinaire Craig Judelman follows the twists and turns of Yiddish song, from intimate folk art to sophisticated theater and art song. With guest accordionist Sanne Möricke, a leader of the Berlin-based klezmer scene for decades. A summit meeting of world-class Yiddish musicians from the USA, Eastern and Western Europe!
link coming soon!
Semer Ensemble
Founded in 2012, the Semer Ensemble is dedicated to music recorded by Jewish artists during the Nazi period on the almost unknown, Berlin-based Semer record label. Destroyed by the Nazis in 1938, the entire Semer catalogue of hundreds of precious, unique recordings was considered lost forever until it was miraculously rediscovered and retrieved from around the world by Dr. Rainer Lotz in the early 2000s. The Semer Ensemble has performed deeply moving renditions of this music in important venues throughout Europe and North America, and has been featured on ARTE, 3Sat, CBC and many other major print and electronic media. A brilliant artistic collaboration under the leadership of Alan Bern, the ensemble also features Paul Brody, Daniel Kahn, Mark Kovnatskiy, Sasha Lurje, Martin Lillich, Fabian Schnedler and Mark Kovnatskiy.
Black Rooster Sings
The Black Rooster are named after the composer and musicologist Emilis Jūlijs Melngailis. The six musicians:inside lift musical treasures, such as the Yiddish heritage of the Litvakn, the Latvian Jews. The repertoire consists of songs that tell of times past, whose timbres also make the present shine.
The audience is invited on a musical journey through a variety of Latvian regions and ethnic groups. Decades before the concept of multiculturalism became popular, this music had already laid the foundation, which is now being rediscovered by The Black Rooster.
link coming soon!
Sklamberg, Lurje Judelman Trio
Featuring one of the leading voices of the Klezmer revival, Lorin Sklamberg and darling of the international Yiddish scene, Sasha Lurje (Latvia/DE), this new transatlantic collaboration perform Yiddish music ranging from old folk ballads to cantorial masterpieces, from Chassidic chants to Yiddish resistance songs, as well old pop and theater songs. They're joined by fiddler Craig Judelman (USA/DE), whose background with old time folk music -Yiddish and otherwise - provides the perfect counterpoint, along with Mr. Sklamberg’s accordion, for these two incredible voices. This small all star band packs a big punch, inviting audiences into the dark and passionate inner world of Yiddish song.
Pleytem Tsuzamen
New York-born composer Josh Waletzky’s new Yiddish song cycle—“pleytem tsuzamen / פּליטים צוזאַמען/ Refugees Together”— is a call for solidarity with those who are most threatened. Confronting our current reality, the songs present a dynamic fusion of traditional forms with the social, political, and personal challenges posed by the world today — and they embody the power of music to foster the courage we need to “link arms and take to the streets together against bloodshed and hatred.”
These songs are stunning and political—addressing immigration and refugeeism, climate collapse, racism, foster care, mass shootings, antisemitism, and “Make Our Race Great Again” ideologies. Waletzky’s voice has rarely been more powerful or timely.
Songs from Testimonies
Founded in 2012, the Semer Ensemble is dedicated to music recorded by Jewish artists during the Nazi period on the almost unknown, Berlin-based Semer record label. Destroyed by the Nazis in 1938, the entire Semer catalogue of hundreds of precious, unique recordings was considered lost forever until it was miraculously rediscovered and retrieved from around the world by Dr. Rainer Lotz in the early 2000s. The Semer Ensemble has performed deeply moving renditions of this music in important venues throughout Europe and North America, and has been featured on ARTE, 3Sat, CBC and many other major print and electronic media. A brilliant artistic collaboration under the leadership of Alan Bern, the ensemble also features Paul Brody, Daniel Kahn, Mark Kovnatskiy, Sasha Lurje, Martin Lillich, Fabian Schnedler and Mark Kovnatskiy.
Sasha Lurje & Litvakus: Goyfriend
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.
link coming soon!
Alpert Judelman Lurje Trio
Songs of the Jewish Ukrainian Heartland
As war rages on in one of the main homelands of Yiddish culture, we join together to sing the songs and tell the stories of our shared homeland. Songs of forbidden loves, boy soldiers, the wonders of nature and looming dangers, these songs of the last centuries have sadly never been less relevant. Ukraine was also the source of our most important collections of old time klezmer tunes. In this program three of the world’s most in-demand Klezmer musicians bring together this diverse repertoire to paint a picture of Jewish life in Ukraine and stand in solidarity with our friends fighting for their freedom.
link coming soon!
Michael Wex’s “The Last Night at the Cabaret Yitesh”
(Di Letste Nakht Baym Yitesh)
Cabaret meets The Producers in this uproariously edgy new show from the New York Times best-selling author Michael Wex. It’s March 15, 1938, and the censor’s office has just advised the performers in Warsaw’s Yiddish-language “Cabaret Yitesh” that tonight’s show will be their last. With visas to leave the country and nothing left to lose, the performers decide to present material that the censors had already forbidden, along with the cabaret’s greatest hits and most famous skits. Mixing controversial material with cabaret songs from the ’30s, original comedy sketches, Yiddish adaptations of international hits and vaudeville classics, Wex is poignantly funny, often shocking, but always surprising. Expect to see rabbis and drag queens, Brunnhilde’s in dirndls and at least one highly politicized hooker knit together by Wex’s acid-tongued MC. The cast features Shane Baker, Daniel Kahn, Sveta Kundish and Sasha Lurje, with musical direction by Patrick Farrell. In Yiddish with supertitles in English.
You Shouldn't Know From It
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.
link coming soon!
STRANGELOVESONGS
...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.
link coming soon!
Festivals
Shtetl Berlin
Started in 2016 by the team behind the legendary Neukölln Klezmer Sessions, Shtetl Berlin a grassroots gathering, celebrating the vibrancy and diversity of contemporary Yiddish culture in Berlin and around the world.
Seattle Yiddish Fest
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.