Jake Shulman-Ment, violin
Alicia Svigals, violin
Pete Rushefsky, tsimbl

Jake Shulman-Ment is a leading voice in contemporary klezmer – a violinist and composer who bridges centuries of tradition with bold, boundary-pushing performance. Known for his fierce improvisations, rich tone, and unflinching virtuosity, Jake’s performances move effortlessly from haunting laments to foot-stomping celebrations. Jake has performed with artists such as Di Naye Kapelye, Joey Weisenberg, Frank London, and Duncan Sheik, appearing at venues and festivals around the world – Central Park Summer Stage, Skirball Center, Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, Rudolstadt, Budapest Palace of the Arts, Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, Teatro Manzoni, Krakow Jewish Culture Festival, and many more. He was featured in Csaba Bereczki’s full-length documentary film Soul Exodus, and performed on screen in HBO’s Succession and Martin Scorcese’s The Irishman. He collected, studied, performed, and documented traditional music in Romania as a Fulbright scholar, and has lived and traveled in Hungary and Greece, learning traditional violin styles. In 2018 he received the prestigious NYSCA/NYFA Fellowship in Folk/Traditional Arts.

Alicia Svigals is a classically trained violinist with a degree in ethnomusicology from Brown University. Named Best Instrumentalist at the Fifth International Klezmer Festival in Safed, Israel, she has toured and recorded extensively with the Klezmatics, of which she is a founding member. She is also a noted player of Greek fiddle music, and she has toured, recorded, and composed for some of Greece’s most famous artists. Svigals has worked with John Zorn, the Kronos Quartet, guitarist Marc Ribot, playwrights Tony Kushner and Eve Ensler, poet Allen Ginsberg, and Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. She also appeared in the TV documentary and recording In the Fiddler’s House with violinist Itzhak Perlman. As a composer, she was selected to be a 2014 MacDowell Fellow, and was the recipient of the Foundation for Jewish Culture’s 2013 New Jewish Culture Network commission for her new score to the 1918 Pola Negri silent film, the Yellow Ticket.

Pete Rushefsky is a leading performer of the klezmer tsimbl (the Eastern European hammered dulcimer). A practicing klezmer musician, Rushefsky performs and records internationally with violinist Itzhak Perlman, the renowned Klezmer Conservatory Band and NEA National Heritage Fellows Andy Statman and Michael Alpert, among others. He has been featured at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Hollywood Bowl, and performed on the air for NPR’s Prairie Home Companion, All Things Considered and PBS’s Great Performances. Rushefsky curated the Yiddish performing arts program for the Smithsonian Institution’s 2013 Folklife Festival on the National Mall, helped to found the annual Yiddish New York festival, and has taught and organized numerous Yiddish folk arts workshops internationally. Pete additionally serves as Executive Director of the New York-based Center for Traditional Music and Dance, one of America’s leading institutions working to preserve the performing arts traditions of America’s immigrant communities. He has authored a number of articles on ethnic music in America.