Lisa Gutkin Klezmer Band
w/ Ahmed Yusuf & Araa Ensemble
Saturday, May 31, 2025
- The Hook and Ladder Theater
- Doors 7:00pm :: Music 7:30pm :: 21+
- Reserved Seat: $17 Box-Office / $19.51 Online
BOX-OFFICE Tickets Are Available in The Zen Arcade During Hours of Operation. For More Information visit www.ZenArcadeTHC.com
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Lisa Gutkin has crafted a courageously varied artistic career by bringing an instantly relatable style to audiences through her theater, music, and storytelling. A masterful Grammy Award-winning violinist, singer/songwriter, actor, and composer, Lisa has an uncanny way of taking those audiences with her wherever she goes.Recognized for her work as violinist and vocalist for the ground breaking Jewish Roots band The Klezmatics and as fiddler for the “Downtown” Celtic band Whirligig, Lisa is also known for her scoring, performance, and music direction in the two time Tony award-winning play, Indecent. She had an on-screen cameo and compositions featured in Sex and the City; has performed in Sting’s Broadway musical The Last Ship; and her song Gonna Get Through This World - with words by Woody Guthrie - was hailed by Pete Seeger as “a piece of genius". Lisa’s playing and stories are fun and poignant, and her voice has been praised by the LA Times as “hauntingly emotional.”
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Di Bayke Klezmer Band (backing band for Lisa Gutkin) plays the energetic party music of Eastern European Jewish tradition. A supergroup made of celebrated Twin Cities musicians, including Pat O’Keefe, Sarah Larsson, Josh Rosard, Daniel Lentz, and Anthony Afful; Di Bayke has collectively studied with master-artists from klezmer tradition, including Lisa Gutkin of The Klezmatics, Ethel Raim of The Pennywhistlers, and Michael Alpert of Brave Old World. Di Bayke’s adventurous takes on beloved Klezmer and Yiddish sounds encourage audiences to get on their feet and explore family stories of journey, roots, and home. Bayke is Yiddish for “tall tale”, and is an acronym for Backyard Klezmer Ensemble, which is where the band got started: playing outside during the COVID pandemic. (say: “Dee Bye-keh”)
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Ahmed Yusuf & Araa Ensemble is the project of Minneapolis-based author and educator Ahmed Ismail Yusuf. Committed to revitalizing the Somali musical genre of Qaraami, Araa Ensemble brings together star vocalists and instrumentalists from the Midwestern Somali diaspora. Araa Ensemble has played their repertoire of Qaraami, which JD Steele describes as “Somalia's blues,” at St. Thomas University, St. John’s University, and been featured on the Twin Cities’ Jazz88. The ensemble creates an intimate, living-room atmosphere and invites audiences in to feel like members of the band.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2025/04/04/somali-blues-and-black-soul-music-in-cross-cultural-collaboration
