History
“What would Ilana do?” — Indra Buraczewska
The London Klezmer Quartet: four musicians, playing klezmer, from London!
The LKQ was founded in 2009, by four London-based klezmer specialists who wanted to explore the almost lost wedding music of the Jews of Eastern Europe. Today the band is based between London, Hannover and country-Latvia, but as the saying goes “you can’t take The London out of The London Klezmer Quartet”.
Over the years, the band has enjoyed a packed, international touring schedule with performances all over the UK and Europe, as well as playing concerts in Brazil and six sell-out tours of Australia and New Zealand.
UK venues
The London Klezmer Quartet has performed at Cafe Oto, the Green Note, Kings Place, Rich Mix, Southbank Centre, Victoria & Albert Museum, the Vortex Jazz Club and Wales Millennium Centre. Festivals include Blysh Festival, Kings Place Festival, Klezfest, Songlines Festival, and Women of the World Festival. LKQ has also been part of UK rural touring schemes in Dorset, Gloucestershire, the north of England and Wales.
International appearances
The band has opened Jewish music festivals in Sao Paolo Brazil (Kleztival), Gelsenkirchen and Munich (Germany). They have also played at Jewish music festivals in Norway and Sweden and at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. In the course of six tours, LKQ played to packed houses around Australia, headlining at the National Folk Festival in Canberra two years running and at other festivals including the Blue Mountains Music Festival, Fairbridge Music Festival, Illawarra Folk Festival and Port Fairy Folk Festival. LKQ has also performed in Belgium, Finland, Holland, Latvia, Luxembourg and New Zealand.
Recordings
LKQ has released four critically acclaimed albums. Evening Standard described the group as “one of the best bands in the UK playing klezmer music”, while Songlines Magazine praised their recordings as “expertly played… a fantastic collection”. The Sunday Times noted: “The tradition is safe in their hands,” and fRoots placed the quartet at the “forefront of the European klezmer revival.”
Education
Alongside their concert work, the LKQ are wonderful educators and their annual Halsway Manor Klezmer Weekend in Somerset is always a sell-out. Members of the group have taught at all the major international klezmer festivals including Yiddish New York, KlezKanada, Shtetl Berlin, Klezfest London, KlezNorth and Yiddish Summer Weimar. Susi and Szilvia run numerous klezmer workshops all across Europe throughout the year. Visit www.shades-of-folk.com
Former members
Ilana Cravitz (violin 2009-2019) - a founder member of the London Klezmer Quartet who was in many ways the the mover and shaker of the group, enabled opportunities for the band to tour worldwide, as well as having a fundamental creative input to the repertoire and arrangements of instrumentals and songs that you can hear on the first four albums. Ilana has many strings to her bow including klezmer, baroque and classical fiddling, plus Yiddish dance calling and teaching. She is the author of several klezmer books.
Carol Isaacs (accordion 2009-2024) - a founder member of the London Klezmer Quartet who not only played, arranged and composed on four albums, but designed the artwork for all of them. Carol has performed worldwide on keyboards in a diversity of genres and with a range of artists including The Indigo Girls (US), Sinead O’Connor (Ireland), Natacha Atlas (Egypt), and Ahmed Mukhtar (Iraq). In 2020 she published a graphic novel and motion comic, The Wolf of Baghdad, with which she toured film festivals in Japan, New York, Tel Aviv and Bangkok.
Francesca Ter-Berg (cello 2009-2012) - a founder member of the London Klezmer Quartet who pioneers klezmer cello on the debut album and features as a guest on the second album.
Francesca is a cellist, composer & producer originally from Hackney, now based in Margate. She works as a solo artist, collaborator and multi-disciplinary artist with a wide range of creators across many genres and is known for her unique musical style inspired by traditional Yiddish music, improvisation, jazz, dub and ethereal string sounds. Francesca’s duo project ‘Fran & Flora’ is with LKQ’s violinist, Flora Curzon.
Guest musicians
Rupert Gillett, double bass
Josh Middleton, accordion
Zoe Aqua, violin
Gallery
