Ilana Cravitz • klezmer  
   
 
BIOGRAPHY

Ilana Cravitz is a violinist specialising in authentic performance of klezmer and baroque repertoire.

Ilana is one of a handful of professional violinists in the UK playing klezmer music in the traditional style. She is the latest link in a musical chain stretching back centuries, having learned aurally from living exponents of the tradition and through recorded sources dating back to the dawn of the recording era.

Ilana is also a teacher: she has introduced hundreds of people of all ages to klezmer playing through a course at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS, University of London), at workshops around Britain and in France, and at events like the Fiddles on Fire and the Genius of the Violin Festival, KlezFest London, and Witney folk weekends.  She is a member of the Jewish Music Institute's Klezmer Caravan, taking Jewish music out to communities around the UK. Her book, Klezmer Fiddle - a how-to guide, is published by Oxford University Press.

Ilana's klezmer bands are the London Klezmer Quartet, a traditional 4-piece ensemble; Clapton Klezmer Duo (with accordionist James Siverly), and Freylekh Klezmer Dance Band, an all-women band featuring saxophones. She has been a guest artist with bands including the She'Koyokh Klezmer Ensemble, Klezmer Klub, and the US ensemble Isle of Klezbos. She specialises in organising and performing in klezmer keilidhs under the banner 'Hopkele', with drummer/dance leader Guy Schalom.

Recent forays into the world of Sephardic music and flamenco have seen Ilana working with Kantos, an ensemble comprising Monica Acosta (voice), Ulises Diaz Ropero (percussion), and Steve Homes (guitar).  Ilana also enjoys playing English and Celtic folk music: she appears regularly with ceilidh band The Muckers, and performed the Scottish fiddle solo in the world premiere of Nigel Hess's ballet suite 'The Old Man of Lochnagar' at Sadler's Wells in October 2007.

Ilana also performs on the baroque violin and viola da gamba, and has toured and recorded with the European Union Baroque Orchestra, The Sixteen, and Victoria Voices and Viols. She appears regularly with Linden and Essex Baroque Orchestras, Suffolk Baroque Players and her own group, The Lantana Ensemble, and has also worked with the Parley of Instruments. You can see video of Ilana's appearances with period performance group Il Festino at St John's, Smith Square, and St James's, Piccadilly playing Castello sonata and Vivaldi 'La Folia'.

Ilana studied traditional klezmer fiddle technique with Deborah Strauss, Alicia Svigals and Michael Alpert, leading violinists in the revival of this Eastern European Jewish folk music. Her baroque violin studies included lessons with Catherine Mackintosh, Walter Reiter, Andrew Manze and Mimi Mitchell, and she also studied the viola da gamba with Richard Boothby. Ilana gained an ARCM (PG) as a result of her post-graduate studies at the Royal College of Music.

 

Ilana Cravitz

 

Jamming

At the Union Chapel

With Klezmer Klub

Holocaust Memorial Day

With the book!

   
 

 

     

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