Michael Winograd & Ira Khonen Temple – Live in Concert

An evening of new klezmer sounds, Yiddish anthems, and radical joy with two of today’s most thrilling and inventive artists redefining Jewish music for a new generation.

At the JCCSF, 3200 California Street, San Francisco, CA 94118

Join us for an exhilarating one-hour performance with these outstanding voices in contemporary Jewish music: Clarinetist and composer Michael Winograd and accordionist and songwriter Ira Khonen Temple. Each reenvisions Jewish musical tradition for the world we live in now – blending virtuosity, humor, tenderness, and defiance into something utterly alive. This event is co-presented by KlezCalifornia.

The evening features music from Winograd’s Tanz! Live in New York City – his new recording of the legendary 1955 klezmer-jazz fusion masterpiece by Sam Musiker and Dave Tarras – and from Temple’s Strange Tongue / Mistame-Loshn: Yiddish Songs About Heartbreak, Courage and Rebellion, an exuberant and irreverent entanglement with Yiddish protest songs, love songs, and anthems. Queer, trans, and antifolk at its core, Temple’s music – featuring members of NYC’s “rad-trad” klezmer scene – is raucous and intimate, defiant and deeply alive. Expect moments of wild joy and quiet revelation, and music that dances between grief and celebration – much like Jewish life itself.

Called “the leading klezmer clarinetist of his generation” (WBGO) and “a master of klezmer ornamentation” (DownBeat), Brooklyn-based Michael Winograd has become the first-call klezmer composer, bandleader, and clarinetist of his time. He has performed at Lincoln Center, Madison Square Garden, and festivals around the world, and has collaborated with artists including Itzhak Perlman, Vulfpeck, Frank London, and the Klezmatics. His latest release, Michael Winograd Plays Tanz! Live in New York City (Borscht Beat Records), revives Musiker and Tarras’s groundbreaking 1955 album Tanz! with a multigenerational all-star band. Over more than a dozen albums, Winograd has built a reputation for playful innovation, deep knowledge, and soulful command of his instrument – a sound, says Songlines (UK), that is “splendid… very accomplished… superlative.”

Ira Khonen Temple is an accordionist, music director, and composer whose work bridges Jewish, Eastern European, and antifolk traditions. Their new album, Strange Tongue/Mistame-Loshn: Yiddish Songs About Heartbreak, Courage and Rebellion, is an exuberant, bilingual journey through Yiddish protest music, love songs, and anthems – informed by klezmer and Romanian dance and featuring members of NYC’s “rad-trad” klezmer scene. Raucous and intimate in turns, Temple’s music opens space for both joy and mourning, inviting audiences into a defiant tradition of survival and solidarity.