The Klezmer Village Band
Strains of the shtetl echo through this trad. trio’s old and new klezmer melodies. The Klezmer Village Band adds a 21st-century zest to klezmer, the distinctive music with deep roots in Jewish Eastern Europe.
"Skill, generosity and an enormous amount of fun" (Plymouth Herald)
Formed in 2026, the ensemble is a collaboration between Ilana Cravitz (violin), John Macnaughton (clarinet) and Theo Malka-Wishart (double bass). Members of the group have formed and performed with some of the best-known ensembles on the klezmer scene, including the London Klezmer Quartet, Klezmer Foygl, Oysland, and She’Koyokh.
KVB's first appearance was at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth (watch a clip of the concert), headlining the first ever Klezmer by the Sea festival. Devon's contribution to Jewish Culture Month 2026 also saw the band enthusing local school children, introducing them to Jewish culture through song, dance and music.
Extracts from the Plymouth Herald's glowing review of the concert:
"Cravitz led the evening with real grace and humour, weaving between the tunes with stories and history that turned the concert into something closer to a guided journey... The history landed lightly, threaded between tunes, and made the music that followed feel richer for it."
"One moment the clarinet was keeping over a slow, aching melody that seemed to carry centuries of longing in it, the next the whole trio was tearing into a dance tune that made it physically difficult to keep still. The double bass anchored everything with a deep, propulsive swing, and there were stretches where the interplay between violin and clarinet felt like a conversation between two old friends, finishing each other's musical sentences."
"There was humour, too, and plenty of it. The band shared jokes and asides between numbers, that distinctive Jewish wit that holds joy and melancholy in the same hand, and the room laughed along easily."
By the second half, a few audience members had abandoned any pretence of sitting still and were up on their feet, having a dance to some of the livelier numbers. Nobody minded. That, you sensed, was rather the point."
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