Klez Fest Midwest

About Klez Fest Midwest

Klez Fest Midwest (KFMW) is an annual music festival in Madison, Wisconsin, presenting great klezmer music as a living and evolving creative tradition. Launched in 2024 at the Mead Witter School of Music at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the main festival takes place in the fall, with occasional events at other times of the year. Past performers have included Alicia Svigals (2024 headliner, the “queen of the klezmer violin”), clarinet superstar David Krakauer (2025 headliner), Laura Elkeslassy, Donald Sosin, and Kathleen Tagg, with band members including Aaron Alexander, Jim Guttman, Curtis Hasselbring, Jordan Hirsch, Will Holshouser, Michael Sarin, Ilya Shneyveys, and Leo Traversa. Klez Fest Midwest has also proudly presented Madison groups Yid Vicious, Kanopy Dance, Elm Duo, and Tsuzamen. In 2026, we are excited to welcome our headliners The Klezmatics, along with Fugu Dugu, the Nigunim Trio, and returning performers Yid Vicious, Tsuzamen and Elm Duo. Past KFMW events have included masterclasses, a dance performance, a film with live music, and a children’s concert.

What is Klezmer?

“Klezmer is the instrumental music of the East European Ashkenazic Yiddish-speaking Jews who lived in the Pale of Settlement from north to south, from all the way up in Lithuania to down in Romania … and the music that was derived when those people left that area of diaspora and went into their further diasporas in Latin America, in North America, in Israel, and other countries.”

For centuries, klezmer musicians performed music for dancing and celebrating at parties, weddings, and other events. The music itself is highly emotional: most klezmer songs manage to express both happiness and sadness, often at the same time. Drawing on Jewish cantorial traditions as well as the folk music of neighboring cultures in Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, Belarus, Lithuania, and Hungary, klezmer developed a distinctive style rich in expressive ornamentation, dance rhythms, and improvisation. Brought around the world by Jewish immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, klezmer flourished in immigrant communities, declined after World War II, and experienced a vibrant revival beginning in the 1970s. Today it is performed, reimagined, and reinterpreted by musicians around the world while remaining deeply connected to its Eastern European Jewish roots. With influences as wide-ranging as hip hop, Romani sounds, funk, and Hasidic cantorial traditions, the music always retains its original identity while continually evolving.

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Stay in Touch

Questions, comments, or want to get involved? Email us at klezfestmidwest@gmail.com.