Klezmer Music Foundation Awarded Arts Emergency Grant

Skokie, IL, June 30, 2020—The Skokie-based Klezmer Music Foundation is normally occupied for the Spring and Summer with community band rehearsals and nonstop performances. But when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down live events, the performances of the Maxwell Street Klezmer Band, the Salaam-Shalom Music Project, and four community bands came to a screeching halt. The livelihoods of musicians, actors, and others in the performing arts depend upon playing to crowds. They are facing an existential crisis with no hope of resuming performances in the near future.

Thanks to a $12,000 grant from Arts Work Fund—Arts for Illinois Emergency Relief Fund (housed at The Chicago Community Trust) to mitigate lost revenue due to COVID-19, The Klezmer Music Foundation will not have to shutter its operation, which has been thriving on public performances since 1983.

Says the organization’s director, Lori Lippitz, "We are beyond grateful for this life-sustaining support. This grant follows the loss of tens of thousands of dollars in current performance revenue, as well as the loss of income for the foreseeable future, as we continue to be prevented from performing and teaching music classes due to the pandemic."

Students around the world are coping creatively with being homebound, and this includes the Junior Klezmer Orchestra, a group of Middle and High School musicians that have been tutored in the art of klezmer by members of Maxwell Street Klezmer Band since 1994.

In lockdown, the students created a virtual klezmer performance video that can be seen here.

Pivoting from its anticipated performance schedule to what can be possible under Illinois Phase 3 and eventually Phase 4 reopening rules, the klezmer musicians are devising a way to continue marking Jewish celebrations with music, using the outdoors as a performance space—much in the way that Mariachi bands provide the soundtrack for Mexican parties.

“Fiddler on the Lawn” is a new live music option for families wishing to celebrate socially-distanced events like weddings, birthday parties, bar and bat mitzvah parties, and other milestones in their back yards or driveways. As the granddaughter of a recent birthday celebrant wrote, “This made my Papa’s quarantined 94th birthday beyond special. Celebrating with his family and neighbors from a distance accompanied by his favorite songs was more than we ever could have asked for. Thank you for making this unique birthday situation so incredible!”

Like klezmer musicians back in the shtetls of Eastern Europe that traveled from town to town playing for celebrations, Maxwell Street’s musicians are finding new ways to lift spirits through the joyful sound of violins and clarinets—wherever people can gather safely in the open air.

About The Chicago Community Trust
The Chicago Community Trust is a foundation dedicated to strengthening the Chicago region and improving the lives of the people who call it home. For more than 100 years, the Trust has served as a trusted philanthropic partner, connecting the generosity of donors with community needs by making grants to nonprofit organizations working to create lasting change. Following the creation of a new strategic plan in 2019, the Trust stands committed to addressing Chicago’s legacy of systemic inequity and closing the racial and ethnic wealth gap, while continuing to respond to the critical needs of our most vulnerable residents. The Trust administers more than $360 million in annual grant-making as part of its commitment to equity, opportunity, and prosperity for the Chicago region. To learn more, visit cct.org.

About Klezmer Music Foundation
In 1983, Lori Lippitz founded The Maxwell Street Klezmer Band. In 1994, she established The Klezmer Music Foundation in order to keep klezmer music alive and flourishing through education and outreach. The goals of the Foundation are: preserving traditional music and dances that were lost with the destruction of the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in the Holocaust; reaching out to seniors, school children, and other audiences who would not otherwise have the opportunity to see live performances; being musical ambassadors to other faith communities through collaboration in the arts; and sharing and teaching Jewish culture to insure its survival.

Contact:
Lori Lippitz, Director, The Klezmer Music Foundation
klezmermusicfoundation@gmail.com, (847) 675-4800

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