CURRENT MISSION

To not squander this terrifyingly brief moment of existence.

ABOUT ME

I play klezmer and Balkan music on the accordion, sing, write music, sometimes act in the theater. I love singing Yiddish socialist songs, drinking good whiskey, and wandering the streets of strange towns, especially all at once. I need travel as a tree needs sunlight, although I don't do it nearly enough.

Interests

• singing
• theater
• dancing
• cooking
• drinking
• traveling
• music
• opera
• languages
• beaches

Music, Movies, and Books

Beethoven, Shostakovich, Kurt Weill, Naftule Brandwein, Dave Tarras, Morris Rosenfeld, David Edelstadt, Alan Bern, Michael Alpert, Frank London, Daniel Kahn, Astor Piazzolla, Evelyn Petrova, Baudelaire, Dostoyevsky, Chekov, Elizabeth Hauptmann, Takaboku, Wallace Shawn, Harold Pinter, Tadeusz Borowski, Thomas Bernhard, Bertrand Russell, Peter Schumann, Noam Chomsky, Norman Finklestein, and many, many others have inspired and taught me.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

There have been so many, none of which can be adequately described here. Spending a cold, sandy night with a lover beneath an overturned rowboat on a desolate Meditteranean beach in the south of Spain, playing the role of Hades in a recently composed opera at various beautiful, gilded opera houses around New England, spending a day at Auschwitz with a copy of Borowski's This Way For the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, falling in love and being pulverized by love, having the occasional nine-hour philosophical discussion, etc., etc.

Teach, Learn, Share

I have taught many people to play klezmer music, and to play the accordion, and I would be happy to try to teach you. As far as learning, my greatest personal deficits are languages and dancing, and I would love to improve in these areas. I'd also be grateful to learn anything having to do with music, cooking, or almost anything else.