Lorin Sklamberg

Lorin Sklamberg has been the lead singer of the Grammy Award winning Jewish American roots band the Klezmatics since its founding during the heyday of the alternative music scene in New York’s East Village in the mid 1980s. His work as vocalist, composer and multi-instrumentalist can be heard on some 50 recordings, solo and in collaboration with such diverse artists as Itzhak Perlman, Don Byron, Uri Caine, Matt Darriau, Frank London, Rob Schwimmer, Jane Siberry, Marc Cohn, Tony Kushner, Moxy Früvous, the Western Wind and, of course, the Klezmatics. His song Headdy Down (with unpublished lyrics by Woody Guthrie) was recently printed in Sing Out! magazine. He has written for film, stage and circus and has produced a number of recordings of world and theater music. He has performed and taught Yiddish song across the globe in locales including Maui, Buenos Aires, St. Petersburg, Kiev, London and Paris. He co-founded the New York-based non-profit organization Living Traditions and coordinated its event, KlezKamp: the Yiddish Folk Arts Program (the world’s major instructional institution for klezmer musicians) for 14 years. When not on tour, Lorin serves as the Sound Archivist of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. "One of the premier American singers in any genre." - Robert Christgau, All Things Considered, National Public Radio **** What the critics have said about: Wonder Wheel [JMG, 2006] What a treat to have Lorin Sklamberg singing in English, with the gentleness and precision non-Yiddish speakers sense in him elaborated and specified by the dozen Guthrie lyrics Sklamberg and his cohort turn into music. He's cheery for the neighborhood pep rally, transported for the mystic prophecy, tenderly humorous for the lullaby, delicately feminine for the tale of two rings, a wedding singer when the music gets Balkan (or is that Middle Eastern?), a Marxist simp with a Scotch-Irish melody dreaming of roads paved with the "finest of plastics." One of the age's signal voices, finally available on terms an Al Green fan can understand. Grade: A -Robert Christgau, The Village Voice ******* ...the versatile lead vocalist Lorin Sklamberg is due for special consideration: the purity of his singing, and his acute sensitivity to the words he sings, is the chief reason that Guthrie's lyrics are transformed from dust-gatherers to living, breathing, vital pieces of music. Woody's Jewish in-laws would certainly have been proud. -Jeff Tamarkin, All Music Guide **** ...Special note should go to lead vocalist Lorin Sklamberg, who sings for all he's worth. -Ed Silverman, Dirty Linen **** ...Klezmatics singer Lorin Sklamberg... emerged as the "star" of the Wonder Wheel project due to his gentle phrasing, vocal exhuberance and pristinely melodic delivery. -Kevin Ransom, Sing Out! **** Woody Guthrie's Happy Joyous Hanuka [JMG, 2006] "Hanuka Dance"... is dished out so gorgeously by Sklamberg that you feel as if you're being carried away on a cloud of sensuous song. -Ed Silverman, Dirty Linen ****