ADRIENNE COOPER (Creator) In Blessed Memory- Internationally recognized as one of this generation’s stellar performers and teachers of Yiddish vocal music, Adrienne Cooper appears on concert, theater, and club stages around the world.  Her singing has been featured on some twenty recordings as well as on film, TV and radio. From Carnegie Hall to the famed Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, from Moscow to Jerusalem, she has mesmerized audiences and worked at the heart of the klezmer revival scene, defining a wholly original  interpretation of Yiddish song.  She has performed and recorded with The Klezmatics, Frank London’s Klezmer Brass AllStars,  David Krakauer, Zalmen Mlotek,  So-Called, The Three Yiddish Divas,  Marilyn Lerner,  Michael Winograd, Alicia Svigals and Mikveh,  Greg Wall’s Unity Orchestra, Joyce Rosenzweig,The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band, Kapelye, and performance artists Jenny Romaine and Sara Felder. Cooper is co-creator of groundbreaking works of Yiddish/English music theater – including the critically acclaimed “The Memoir of Gluckl of Hameln (with Jenny Romaine and Frank London/Great Small Works Theater),” “Ghetto Tango” (with Zalmen Mlotek),  and “Esn:  Songs from the Kitchen” (with Lorin Sklamberg and Frank London).  Recent projects include her multi-media concert experience “Every Mother’s Son:  Jewish Songs of War and Peacemaking “ featuring animations by Israeli visual artist Mor Erlich, and composer Marilyn Lerner’s revolutionary bilingual song cycle “Shake My Heart Like a Copper Bell: On the Poetry  of Anna Margolin.”

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ZALMEN MLOTEK (CREATOR/PIANO) is an internationally recognized authority on Yiddish folk and theatre music and is a leading figure in the Jewish theatre and concert worlds. He is Artistic Director of the National Yiddish Theatre-Folksbiene, the longest-operating Yiddish theatre company in America. . One of the innovations that he inspired were instituting bi-lingual simultaneous English and Russian supertitles at all performances as well as children’s performances and concerts and stage readings. Mr. Mlotek brought Yiddish-Klezmer music to Broadway and Off-Broadway stages as co-creator, music director, and conductor of THOSE WERE THE DAYS, the first bilingual musical honored with a Drama Desk Award and nominated for two Tony Awards as well as THE GOLDEN LAND, the recent Off-Broadway hit. He was also a composer arranger and music director for Isaac Bashevis Singer and Robert Brustein's acclaimed production of Shlemiel the First  that originated at the American Reportory Theatre in Cambridge and then toured nationally including  Lincoln Center's Serious Fun Festival in 1995 and most recently at the Skirball Center.

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LISA FISHMAN (PERFORMER)  has performed throughout the U.S. and Europe – starring in Off-Broadway and Regional Musical Theater, soloing with many of the great artists in Jewish music, singing and recording with Chicago’s “Maxwell Street Klezmer Band” and “The Modern Klezmer Quartet”, as well as recording and performing her own original music. Theater credits include the Drama Desk nominated, Off-Broadway sensation, On Second Avenue, starring Mike Burstyn, Sally Bowles in Cabaret, Nancy in Oliver, Fanny Brice & Emma Goldman in Tintypes, the chanteuse in Ghetto Cabaret, and leading lady in Bruce Adler, A,B,C. Lisa can be heard singing Sheyn Vi Di Levone, in the 2003 film, Dummy, starring Academy Award winner, Adrien Brody, Illeana Douglas and Milla Jovovich. Lisa’s work in Jewish music also includes her own original musical act, The Lisa Fishman Jewish Experience, in which she performs updated versions of Jewish standards.

 

 

DANIELLA RABBANI (​PERFORMER)​ Daniella is a critically acclaimed actress and singer whose work has been praised by The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, The New York Observer and more. An NYU Tisch/Stella Adler graduate, Daniella is a third generation holocaust survivor who is dedicated to bringing community together through song and story. Daniella has appeared Off-Broadway in the Folksbiene's productions of the Drama Desk nominated The Golden Land, The Adventures of Hershele Ostropolyerand Gimpel Tam, as well as performed concerts at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Town Hall and the State Jewish Theater in Warsaw, Poland among other venues. Daniella's film and TV credits include the forthcoming Appropriate Behavior (Sundance Film Festival), Be Here Nowish (Tribeca Film Festival) and PBS's Triangle Fire. She is currently recording a Yiddish album and creating a film about the experiences of a third generation survivor. For more information, and to get involved, please visit:

www.daniellarabbani.com.

 

 

AVRAM MLOTEK (PERFORMER) is a student at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School.  He was recently selected as a leading innovator in Jewish life today in The Jewish Week's 36 Under 36 section.  A native Yiddish speaker, Avram performs regularly with the National Yiddish Theatre - Folksbiene Center for Performing Arts.  He participated in the company's off-Broadway show, Kids and Yiddish, for five years and is featured on over half a dozen professional Yiddish and Klezmer recordings.  A blogger for Shma - Journal of Jewish Ideas, Avram's writings have been published in The Huffington Post, Tablet and The Jewish Week among other magazines. He is the rabbinic intern at Kehilath Israel in Kansas City, chaplain intern at Project ORE, a day shelter for Jewish homeless in Manhattan, and works as a cantor across the tri-state area.  He lives on the Upper West Side with his wife Yael and daughter Revaya.

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