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Adah Hetko started writing songs at the age of three and hasn’t been able to stop since. One fateful winter night, she fell in love with Yiddish folk song, and began to dream of someday writing new songs in Yiddish. Adah’s dream has come true: today she is a Yiddish singer/songwriter, dance-leader and educator based in Boston, MA. Several of her compositions are featured on the album Levyosn’s Lullaby, recorded with her ensemble Levyosn (Ashkenazi Hebrew for “leviathan”), and released by Borscht Beat in June 2023. Levyosn’s Lullaby has been described as “one of those special recordings that brings joy and a smile each time it is heard” (Ari Davidow) and “a warm Yiddish blanket [to] calm your frayed nerves” (Rokhl Kafrissen). Adah has developed her knowledge and skills in many ways, including writing an ethnographic study of contemporary Yiddish women singers (while completing an MA in Jewish Studies at Indiana University), co-founding Western Massachusetts-based klezmer band Burikes, studying Yiddish song and dance-leading with veteran artist Judy Bressler, and teaching Yiddish songs to students of truly all ages.
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Anthony Russell is a vocalist, composer and arranger specializing in music in the Yiddish language. His work in Ashkenazi Jewish musical forms led to an exploration of his own ethnic roots through the research, arrangement and performance of a hundred years of African American music, resulting in the EP Convergence (2018), a collaboration with klezmer consort Veretski Pass exploring the sounds and themes of one hundred years of African American and Ashkenazi Jewish music.
Inspired by an ethnographic trip to Belarus and Poland as a Wallis Annenberg Helix Fellow (2016-17), Anthony formed a duo, Tsvey Brider (“Two Brothers”), with accordionist and pianist Dmitri Gaskin for the composition and performance of original music set to Yiddish poetry. Their recent release, Kosmopolitn, features their settings of 20th century Yiddish modernist poetry for voice and string ensemble.
A past Hadar Rising Song Fellow (2021-22) and a present Mandel Institute Cultural Leadership Fellow (2023-25) Anthony has expanded his work into cultural activism through collaboration with the Workers Circle and as an essayist in a number of publications including The Forward, Tablet Magazine, JTA, PROTOCOLS, Full Stop, Magazine, Ayin Press and Jewish Currents. Anthony lives in Atlanta, GA with his husband of eight years, Rabbi Michael Rothbaum.
Co-sponsors: Avodah, Be'chol Lashon, Boston Workers Circle, Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, Society for Humanistic Judaism
