Lisa Gutkin

Lisa Gutkin has crafted a courageously varied artistic career by bringing an instantly relatable style to audiences through her theater, music, and storytelling. A masterful Grammy Award-winning violinist, singer/songwriter, actor, and composer, Lisa has an uncanny way of taking those audiences with her wherever she goes.

Recognized for her work as violinist and vocalist for the ground breaking Jewish Roots band, The Klezmatics, and as fiddler for the Downtown Celtic band Whirligig, Lisa is also known for her scoring, performance, and music direction in the two time Tony Award-winning play, Indecent. She had an on-screen cameo and compositions featured in Sex and the City; has performed in Sting’s Broadway musical The Last Ship; and her song Gonna Get Through This World - with words by Woody Guthrie - was hailed by Pete Seeger, as “a piece of genius. Lisa’s playing and stories are fun and poignant, and her voice has been praised by the LA Times as “hauntingly emotional.”

Lisa plays klezmer (the music of the Ashkenazy Jews of Eastern Europe) with a nod to her grandparents and a creativity born from her days as a NYC freelance musician. Lisa Gutkin’s Concert in Klezmer is a lyrical and vivacious program featuring Lisa with long time collaborator Pete Rushefsky (tsimbl) and Massachusetts’ own Rachel Leader (violin), and includes doynas (free metered, highly ornamented pieces), freylkhn (dance tunes), and songs in English and Yiddish