POLIN Music Festival: David Krakauer & Kathleen Tagg

For over 20 years David Krakauer has been one of the most effective ambassadors of American Jewish culture in Poland and all over the world. This Grammy nominated clarinetist is not only a klezmer musician, but also an excellent soloist and chamber music virtuoso.

• 17 February (Saturday), 6PM, Auditorium

On the first day of the POLIN Music Festival, we had a chance to admire David Krakauer in the Concerto for a klezmer clarinet written for Krakauer by Wlad Marhulets. On the second day, in the opening  concert, he made a guest appearance with the Hashtag Ensemble in Judd Greenstein's work The Jewish Pope. We will hear him first as a soloist in the famous New York Counterpoint for solo clarinet and a tape, written by Steve Reich in 1985. Next, in a duo with South African pianist Kathleen Tagg, they will perform excerpts from the program Breath and Hammer. The series consists of compositions written for them by esteemed artists: an excellent clarinetist and composer, member of the Daniel Barenboim’s Divan Orchestra and Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble: born in Damascus Kinan Azmeh; a tzaddik of the New York avant-garde scene - John Zorn - and Krakauer himself. These works combine the desire to use almost the entire spectrum of the sound of both clarinet and the piano - hence the title: breath and hammer.

The concert will be preceded by another festival premiere: the Piano Trio by Avyia Kopelman performed by Kathleen Tagg, Michael Guttman and Jing Zhao. 

The motto of this composition is a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche 's Birth of Tragedy: "The metaphysical comfort with which every true tragedy leaves us – that life is at the bottom of things, despite all the changes of appearances, indestructibly powerful and pleasurable…”

POLIN Museum music scene is supported by LOTTO