Kurt Bjorling

Clarinetist Kurt Bjorling, who also performs on basset-horn,

bass clarinet, 'tsimbl,' saxophone, and accordion,

is noted for a penetrating understanding of 'klezmer' music.

Kurt Bjorling is the music director of the

Chicago Klezmer Ensemble, founded in 1984.

He has also toured and recorded with the Klezmatics (New York) and violinist Itzhak

Perlman, and since 1992 he has been a

member of Brave Old World.

He has composed pieces for orchestra and

soloists: "Suite of Yiddish Music," commis-

sioned in December 1991 by the Concordia

Chamber Symphony at New York's Lincoln

Center, "Concertino on Klezmer Music

Themes" commissioned by the Huntington

Symphony with members of the Cincinnati

Klezmer Project and "Barditshever Fantaziye"

for clarinet and chamber orchestra, premiered

by the Amsterdam Sinfonietta in November, 2003.

Kurt has taught music at the annual Yiddish Folk Arts Program sponsored by the YIVO Institute and

Living Traditions, at the Multicultural Folk Arts Center's klezmer music camp at Buffalo Gap, West

Virginia, and at numerous European, American and Canadian festivals and workshops including the

annual Jewish Culture Festival in Cracow, Poland, the Jüddishe Kulturtage in Berlin, Ashkenaz Festival

of New Yiddish Culture (Toronto), KlezmerWochen Weimar, (Germany) and 'KlezFest,' London.

Kurt studied clarinet with Lloyd Scott, and with Larry Combs at Northwestern University.

In addition to his involvement with Yiddish music, he has been active playing jazz, chamber music

and various styles of ethnic folk music, as well as arranging and performing music for theater.

photos: top row: A.Bjorling; Bill Burlingham; A.Kramarz; B.Burlingham; Siegwart

main photo by Andrzej Kramarz, Krakow, Poland