About the band?

The Shpilkes Klezmer Band is formed of players from the western suburbs of Boston. Starting in 2000 as the congregational klezmer band at Temple Aliyah in Needham, MA, the band has become a mainstay of the Purim celebrations and congregational events at various synagogues. Shpilkes is available for events around the Boston area.

The name "Shpilkes" (שפּילקעס) is a Yiddish word for "nervous energy". The most commonly quoted etymology appears to be from the Polish szpilka, "pin". The word is also sufficiently like the Yiddish term "shpil", meaning play, that it can help to think of it as "playing instead of sitting still". That's where Shpilkes Klezmer Band is at, hyperactive, ready to play and certainly not to sit still.

Klezmer is the traditional folk music of the Yiddish speaking communities of Eastern Europe and America during the 19th and 20th centuries. The term Klezmer derives from the Hebrew "klei zemer" (musical instruments), and encompasses a broad repertoire ranging from the instrumental dances that would have been performed at traditional weddings, Yiddish folk songs, the bigger sound of 20th century Yiddish swing that inspired many performers and songs of the Big Band era, and the show tunes of the Yiddish theater. No one can listen to Klezmer without wanting to dance to its lively, living melodies and relating to the instrumental voices that sing of the human experience.