Grantee Database
Kugelplex
Grant Year
2023-24
Grant Program
Impact Projects
Award Amount
$21,250.00
Project Description
With support from the California Arts Council, composer/Accordionist Dan Cantrell and Oakland-based Kugelplex Klezmer ensemble will collaborate with local Romani culture bearers to create a new symphonic work Maro Djipen; Maro Them; Mare Batschepen” (Our life, Our land, Our music) to promote Romani-Jewish cultural and sociopolitical visibility/solidarity. Our musical work, featuring an 8-piece Klezmer-Romani ensemble with full symphony orchestra, will take listeners on a sonic journey from Ukraine to California and back again. In a first-of-its-kind presentation, the first half of the piece will be performed Dec 3 & 4, 2023 by Kugelplex and the SF Symphony conducted by, Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser and then the second half of the piece will be performed a week later across the bay on Dec 10th, 2023 by Kugelplex and the Oakland Symphony, conducted by Ash Walker.
Organization Summary
Kugelplex is the West Coast’s last remaining – and most venerable – full time working klezmer band. Since 2001, the ensemble has played thousands of lifecycle events and concerts in the Bay Area, California, and throughout the United States. We teach workshops and create collaborative, multidisciplinary performance works with renowned collaborators. Previous collaborators include Joan Baez, San Francisco Symphony, Oakland Symphony, Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, Frank London (founder of the Klezmatics), Kitka, Rumen Sali Shopov, Jewlia Eisenberg, and many others.
Our solidary-building projects engage master culture bearers from Arabic and Romani communities to create ambitious community-engaged music and dance works.
Organization
Kugelplex
Address
1616 Wellington Street
Oakland
94602
County
Alameda
Region
Bay Area – Other
Phone
(510) 838-6669
Congressional District
12
State Assembly District
18
State Senate District
9
