Dave Tarras (1897-1989) was the individual most responsible for the development of a uniquely American style of Jewish klezmer music. Born into a large klezmer family in Podolia, central Ukraine, Tarras immigrated to New York in 1921. Here his talent was immediately recognized, and he was quickly conscripted into the local music scene. The year 2025 represents the centennial of Tarras’ initial recordings from 1925. His sparkling five-decade recording career documents his innovations — a new corpus of repertoire as well as a refined style that reflected musically the aesthetics of an upwardly-mobile and assimilating mid-century American Jewish community.

In the mid-1970s, Tarras mentored the young musicians Andy Statman and Walter Zev Feldman, and the three worked together to present a series of tours and an important recording sponsored by the Balkan Arts Center (now the Center for Traditional Music and Dance). The program sparked a revitalization of klezmer on the East Coast, which has blossomed into an international revival of Yiddish culture. Statman would follow in his mentor’s footsteps and become recognized as the first clarinet virtuoso produced by the klezmer revival.

Please join us for this special concert celebrating Tarras’ 100-year recording legacy and its impact on American klezmer featuring three of the contemporary Yiddish music scene’s leading performers — NEA National Heritage Fellow Andy Statman (clarinet), Dan Blacksberg (trombone) and Pete Rushefsky (tsimbl/cimbalom).

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.