Known as the King of Klezmer, Giora Feidman is a virtuoso clarinet player who embodies the traditional Jewish music of his ancestors, while creating an eclectic, well-travelled melting pot of sounds.

Born into a family who emigrated from Bessarabia (now Moldova) to Argentina, Fiedman was the fourth generation in his family to become a musician, and spent his childhood performing with his father at weddings and bar mitzvahs. He also soaked up the Yiddish songs sung by his mother, the tango music he heard on the streets of Buenos Aires, and German classical composers such as Wagner and Schubert and, at 18 he joined the orchestra at the Teatro Colon opera house. After being invited to join the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra by conductor Paul Kletzki, he moved to the Holy Land in 1957, and became a valuable member of the orchestra for 18 years as it grew in prestige.

In the 1970s Feidman helped kick-start a revival in the traditional klezmer music played in Eastern Europe by Jewish travelling people, including his own forefathers, and his album 'Jewish Soul Music' sought to update the traditions with the multi-cultural atmosphere of modern Israel. He went on to perform with the Kronos Quartet, the Berlin Symphoniker and the Munich Radio Orchestra, and despite being a champion of the authentic, historical music and folklore, he also filled his sets with tangos, Mozart and Gershwin tunes and those of contemporary Israeli composers.

He memorably declared "the clarinet is the microphone of my soul" and came to wider attention in the 1990s when he performed on the Academy Award-winning soundtrack to Steven Speilberg's iconic holocaust film 'Schindler's List'. Still performing into his eighties, he was awarded the Order of Merit in Germany in 2001 and performed for Pope Benedict XVI and 800,000 people at the World Youth Day in Cologne in 2005.

Giora Feidman

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