Album Notes

Ceilizemer: Shalom Ireland

"What happens when you combine Irish and Jewish music? CeiliZemer, of course!"
Fiona Ritchie, The Thistle and Shamrock (March, 2006)

artists:

--David Kidron (fiddle, whistle, vocal)
--Andy Rubin (5-string and tenor banjos, mandolin, guitar and vocal)
--Vince Wolfe (flute, B uillean pipes, whistle, guitar, bodhran)
--Lewis Santer (guitar, bouzouki, mandolin)

with help from:

--LaRita Craft (accordion)
--Julie Hochman (cello)
--Sean Feder (percussion)
--Shawn King (recording engineer, hand claps)

To combine traditional Irish music with klezmer is a compelling, but little explored, idea. Nonetheless, there are several of us in Northern California who enjoy the craic and the krekht, the hornpipe and the hora, or in other words, could be called "Klez-Maureen". Imagine, then, our excitement when we heard that a documentary about the Jewish community of Ireland needed a soundtrack! A few days after giving the filmmaker, Valerie Lapin Ganley, our respective CDs ("The Flower of Berezin" by The Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band, which includes David Kidron and Andy Rubin, and "The Welcoming Table" by the Irish band Driving With Fergus, which includes Lewis Santer and Vince Wolfe) and performing during a screening of the rough-cut of "Shalom Ireland", Valerie signed us on. We brought in Julie Hochman, LaRita Craft and Sean Feder, and called ourselves Ceilizemer ("ceili" for an Irish dance party; "zemer", Hebrew for song). We're proud of the results, which combine the joy and heartbreak of two genres in ways we hope you'll find pleasing.