Brooklyn Summer Concert Event 2021

Join us as we are serenaded by some wonderful music by renowned
Klezmer performers
Peter Rushefsky and his wife, Madeline Solomon.

With a special performance by piano virtuoso:
Kaila Rochelle.

Pete Rushefsky is a leading performer, composer and researcher of the Jewish tsimbl (cimbalom/hammered dulcimer). Rushefsky tours and records internationally with violinist Itzhak Perlman as part of the Klezmer Conservatory Band, and collaborates with a number of leading figures in the contemporary klezmer scene including Andy Statman, Adrianne Greenbaum, Steven Greenman, Joel Rubin, Eleonore Biezunski, Michael Alpert, Madeline Solomon, Zhenya Lopatnik, Ilya Shneyveys, Zoe Aqua, Jake Shulman-Ment, Keryn Kleiman, Josh Waletzky & Michael Wino grad. He serves as Executive Director of the Center for Traditional Music and Dance, the nation’s leading organization dedicated to the preservation and presentation of diverse immigrant music traditions from around the world. A co-founder/organizer of Yiddish New York (the US’s largest festival of Yiddish culture), he curated the Yiddish program at the 2013 Smithsonian Folklife Festival and has authored a number of articles including a new book on klezmer for the hammered dulcimer with Deborah Justice.

Madeline Solomon is an arts educator, dancer and puppeteer, musician and founding director of The Music Garden, an arts education programme for children. She is Director of The Childrens Programme at KlezKanada, Coordinator of the Brooklyn Workers Circle Shule and works as a creative arts therapist with children and seniors using puppets and Yiddish song. Madeline has taught, performed, musically directed, and choreographed across Europe, Canada, and the United States for over twenty years, most notably in The Solomon Sisters, a Yiddish Cabaret Duo, with her sister; and a sold-out original musical puppet theatre show, “Twice Upon a Time”, for children. Highlights of Madeline’s career have been musically directing Phillip Glassborow’s musical “Welcome to Terezin” (NYU’s Provincetown Playhouse); performing with octogenarian beatnik poet Michael Horovitz at London’s Royal Albert Hall and serving as Hugh Laurie’s musical consultant.

Kaila Rochelle, pianist, composer, former special needs music teacher and singer of childrens’ songs performed a Mozart Sonata at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music at age six. By age 17 she performed frequently in local concert venues and on radio. Her teachers included two protégés of Claudio Arrau; German Diez and Jose Aldaz. Disabled at age 17 due to a rare latent spinal birth defect she was unable to practice for fifteen years. After undergoing multiple spinal surgeries and illnesses Kaila through the guidance of her parents became a special education teacher. This career path motivated her to again pursue music and to share her love of music with her students.

Her website specialneedsinmusic.com is used throughout the world. Her piano performances can be seen at her youtube station Ketzela001. Her repertoire includes Classical, Hebraic, and Folk Music.
Ketzela001 youtube.com Piano Performance Videos:
https://www.youtube.com/user/Ketzela001/videos
Kaila Rochelle's Piano Music Web Page:
http://specialneedsinmusic.com/piano.html

Thanks to the graciousness of the Hadassah Park Slope Chapter, Kaila was given an accommodation that enabled her to perform her final public recital. She now relies on technology to enable her pursuit of music interpretation.