Songs from the Kitchen — Chanukah Edition!

Sarah Mina Gordon is a fourth-generation Yiddish singer. She fronted the rock band Yiddish Princess and has recorded and performed with Daniel Kahn, Frank London’s Klezmer Brass Allstars, The Klezmatics, Sharabi, and others.

Daughter of legendary Yiddish singer Adrienne Cooper z’’l, Sarah grew up immersed in innovative Yiddish culture and has collaborated with Michael Winograd, Frank London, Alicia Svigals, and The Klezmatics to pen original Yiddish songs which are sung around the world. Sarah is also an educator, teaching third grade and designing and leading Yiddish programs for children and adults. She is one of the founding organizers of Yiddish New York and teaches Yiddish song at KlezKanada.

Sir Frank London is a New York-based trumpeter, composer, and a Grammy Award winner known as the “mythical high priest of Avant-Klez jazz.” In 1986, he co-founded The Klezmatics, a globally-renowned Yiddish world music group that incorporates activist politics and Jewish spirituality with diverse musical influences and contemporary themes.

Throughout his prolific career London has performed and recorded with countless artists including Pink Floyd, Itzhak Perlman, Celia Cruz, Lester Bowie and LL Cool J. He has composed numerous scores for dance, theater and film, including the Cuban-Yiddish opera Hatuey Memory of Fire; the symphonic oratorio 1001 Voices – A Symphony for A New America; the folk opera A Night in the Old Marketplace; Davenen for Pilobolus Dance Theater, and Min Tanaka’s Romance. 

His current projects include Ghetto Songs; the poetry-dance collaboration Salome: Woman of Valor; and Ich Bin Eine Hexe/I Am A Witch, the dance-theater biography of Weimar Era grotesque dancer Valeska Gert. Frank is featured on over 500 recordings. He received his degree in Afro-American music from New England Conservatory.

Lorin Sklamberg is a founding member of The Klezmatics. He also teaches Yiddish song from São Paulo to St. Petersburg. His current project focuses on newly-discovered Yiddish cabaret songs from Helsinki performed together with Berlin-based Latvian singer Sasha Lurje, pianist/theremin player Rob Schwimmer and music director/clarinetist Michael Winograd.

His other recent work includes 150 Voices, a recorded collaboration between Lorin, Yiddish-Russian singer/pianist/composer Polina Shepherd and the members of five choirs in the UK and the United States. Since 2000 Lorin has served as the Sound Archivist of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, for whom he co-curates the Ruth Rubin Legacy website featuring field recordings of the renowned folklorist’s collection of some 3,000 Yiddish folk songs. Robert Christgau of NPR’s All Things Considered called Lorin “one of the premier American singers in any genre.”