The PPH Museum Presents: The Wholesale Klezmer Band!

The Wednesday Folk Traditions concert series at The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum continues  its 42nd season on July 5th  at 6:30 pm with The Wholesale Klezmer Band featuring a program of Jewish Life in Song. The concert will be held on the grounds of the museum at 130 River Drive, Route 47, Hadley MA 01035. Admission is $12, $2 for children 16 and under. Payment is cash only. Picnickers are welcome on the museum’s grounds starting at 5:00 pm. In the event of rain, performances will be held at Wesley United Methodist Church in Hadley. The museum and its grounds are a smoke-free site. For further information please call (413) 584-4699 or view www.pphmuseum.org.

The Wholesale Klezmer Band celebrates Yiddish songs through a mix of social justice-oriented music, Ashkenazic Jewish prayer melodies, and instrumental tunes that one can meditate and dance to. Performances are held in Yiddish and Loshn Koydesh, and include many original songs that promote an accessible and immersive linguistic and musical experience.

Since 1982, the band has showcased Jewish music and culture for a wide variety of audiences, performing onstage, in educational settings, and at Jewish weddings and other traditional events. The Wholesale Klezmer Band has also held a variety of workshops and high-profile performances, including a Celebration of Folk Music for the 100th anniversary of Carnegie Hall and President Bill Clinton’s inauguration. 

The Wholesale Klezmer Band consists of members Yosl (Joe) Kurland on vocals and fiddle, Christina Crowder on the accordion, Michael Suter on the bass violin, Brian Bender on the trombone, Peggy Davis on vocals and flute, Joanna Morse on the fiddle, and Aaron Bousel on the accordion. The band has received acclaim from numerous publications, including the Jewish Federation Reporter of New Hampshire, who described the group as “A New England treasure.”

Wednesday Folk Traditions continues on July 12th with Viva Quetzal, an acclaimed Afro-Andean fusion group whose music is rooted in folk traditions of Chile and Peru. In using a wide array of native instruments from throughout the Americas, and infusing elements of jazz and rock traditions into their music, they create a uniquely multicultural experience for their listeners, and are a valued addition to this season’s concert series.  

Wednesday Folk Traditions is funded, in part, by grants from: the Marion I. And Otto C. Kohler Memorial Fund at the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts;  Mass Cultural Council, a state agency, through its Festivals and Programs Grants; the Amherst and Hadley Cultural Councils; local agencies funded by Massachusetts Cultural Council;  Robinson and Cole; The Adams Foundation; Easthampton Savings Bank; Gage-Wiley and Company, and with generous support from many local businesses.

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation acknowledges that it occupies the unceded lands of the Nonotuck people. The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum contains a collection of the belongings of several generations of one extended Hadley family, dating back to the house’s establishment in 1752 by Moses and Elizabeth Porter. The house and its activities included the labor and livelihood of many artisans, servants, and enslaved people. Their lived experiences are being brought to the forefront at the museum in the form of a new tour and reinterpretation initiative funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The new tour foregrounds the lives of six enslaved men and women at the house: Zebulon Prutt, Cesar, Peg, Phillis, Rose, and Phillis. Additionally, the tour highlights the role of “pastkeeping” by exploring the home’s transition into a museum in the twentieth century. Recently, the museum was designated the “Forty Acres and its Skirts National Historic District” by the Massachusetts Historical Commission. Open June 3rd through October 15, Saturday through Wednesday. For more information check out our website at:www.pphmuseum.org  or call the museum at (413) 584-4699.