Seth Rogovoy’s multimedia program “The Essential Klezmer” takes audiences on a journey via music, pictures, videos, and storytelling, tracing klezmer’s evolution and development from Old World shtetls to New World nightclubs. The program includes insights into the sound and shape of klezmer and introduces many of the great heroes who helped transform Eastern European Yiddish wedding music into a living, breathing popular form of American music. Seth is the author of The Essential Klezmer: A Music Lover’s Guide to Jewish Roots and Soul Music, the all-time bestselling guide to klezmer. 

Seth Rogovoy is a writer, radio commentator, lecturer, and concert and record producer. Termed “American Jewry’s greatest Dylan scholar” by Religion News Service, Seth is the author of Bob Dylan: Prophet Mystic Poet (Scribner, 2009) a full-length analysis of Bob Dylan’s life and work, and The Essential Klezmer: A Music Lover’s Guide to Jewish Roots and Soul Music (Algonquin Books, 2000), the all-time bestselling guide to klezmer music, and which has been translated into Chinese and Korean. For over three decades, Seth’s work has appeared in the English-language national Jewish newsweekly, the Forward, to which Seth is a contributing editor. Seth is the recipient of a 2016 Simon Rockower Award from the American Jewish Press Association for excellence in arts and criticism, for his portrait of musician Leonard Cohen published in Hadassah Magazine in its April/May 2015 issue. Seth is editor and publisher of The Rogovoy Report – an online magazine of cultural and critical news and observations, also available in the form of a weekly e-newsletter. Seth also does cultural, editorial, and marketing consulting. He is the programming consultant for the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass., where he curates the center’s annual YIDSTOCK: Festival of New Yiddish Music, which debuted in summer 2012, and which continues under his artistic direction.

There is no fee, but please RSVP for planning purposes. This event is held virtually on Zoom. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the event. For more information, contact Program Director Ilene Tatro at itatro@cbisd.org.

CSP Partners: Beth Israel (San Diego, CA), Brotherhood Synagogue (Gramercy Park, NYC), Congregation Beth Shalom (Seattle, WA), Congregation B’nai Tzedek (Fountain Valley, CA), Congregation B’nai Israel (Tustin, CA), Jewish Collaborative of Orange County, CA, Shomrei Torah Synagogue (San Fernando Valley, CA), Temple Bat Yahm (Newport Beach, CA), Temple Beth El of South Orange County (Aliso Viejo, CA), Temple Beth Emet (Anaheim, CA), Temple Beth Ohr (La Mirada, CA), Temple Beth Tikvah (Fullerton, CA), Temple Beth Shalom (Needham, MA), Temple Beth Sholom (Santa Ana, CA), Temple Emanuel (Newton, MA), Town & Village Synagogue (NYC, NY), University Synagogue (Irvine, CA), Valley Beth Shalom (Encino, CA) & Walnut Street Synagogue (Chelsea, MA)