Merlin Shepherd is a clarinetist who specialises in the Jewish instrumental folk music of Eastern Europe commonly known as “Klezmer. Has been Musical Director for The Royal National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company and Shakespeare"s Globe Theatre, London. He was also Klezmer Advisor for the Royal Shakespeare Company for their 1992 production of Anski’s “The Dybbuk”.

He works as Music Co-ordinator for KlezKamp, KlezFest London and taught at KlezFest St Petersburg, KlezFest Ukraine and KlezKanada. He is one of the world"s leading players of traditional East European Klezmer Clarinet style, and apart from his own ensembles he has worked and toured throughout Britain and Europe with Budowitz, Frank London"s Klezmer Brass Allstars and Aaron Alexander’s Midrash Mish-Mosh.

“Having spent many years teaching and playing at several klezmer/yiddish events in the former Soviet Union, namely Kiev, Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kazan, I found myself in the company of a group of musicians who"s artistry was a joy to behold. These players started as students but now have became colleagues. This is a compliment that it gives me great joy to pay them. I decided that I wanted to work more closely with them and see and hear them more often than once or twice a year. The resulting work became this project, a CD is soon due for release. All the tunes that the band plays are composed by me and in the style of old music from Jewish eastern Europe. Sometimes raucous and wild, othertimes poignant and gentle, this music doesn’t simply evoke the old world; it is a direct link that joins the old world of east European Klezmorim with today’s brightest and most talented former Soviet Union players!
The band consist of 11 musicians, all of whom are soloists and teachers and professionals in their own right. Here we come together on a project that gives all of them a chance to shine, and gives a chance for them to be heard outside of their homelands. Please give respect and honour to this Kapelye, featuring the Former Soviet Union Klezmer Allstars.”

CD "Intimate Hopes & Terrors (tales from the kishkes)", Oriente Musik, 2006.
Songlines Magazine, January 2007:
With its bright, characterful clarinet playing and attractive, soulful repertoire, this is one of the finest klezmer releases of recent years. Merlin Shepherd is Britain’s best klezmer clarinettist and his instrument sings, squeals and chuckles. Here he’s performing with a hand picked group of musicians from Ukraine, Russia, Moldova and other parts of the former Soviet Union. Ukraine was one of the historic centres of klezmer music, but getting a band together that sounds as idiomatic as this one is a major achievement after the Holocaust and 50 years of Soviet rule effectively destroyed any living Jewish culture there.
Alongside Shepherd’s clarinet, the ten accompanying musicians on violins, tsimbl (cimbalom), accordion, domra (Russian mandolin) and percussion are playing original music by Shepherd that is strongly influenced by Jewish and Balkan tradition. Most of the players are classically trained – violinists Mark Kovnatsky and Alexey Rozov come from the Moscow Conservatoire and Gnessin State Musical College respectively – although they’ve successfully shed any formal reserve, and bring some colourful techniques such as Rozov’s spectral harmonics.

As a composer Shepherd seems to have been inspired by the experience of working with these players as well as by his profound knowledge of the repertoire to create music that is new and traditional at the same time. ‘Pass the Kasha’ is a glorious clarinet tune, with a ‘terkish’ rhythm and rattling tsimbl that could have sprung from the Jewish shtetls of Ukraine.
The Polish trio Kroke are the headline band on Germany’s Oriente label. But it’s a long way from being a one-band show: this Merlin Shepherd disc, Di Naye Kapalye and the Sephardic singers Ruth Yaakov and David Saltiel are making Oriente one of the most interesting labels for Jewish music in Europe.

Simon Broughton

Klezmershack: Merlin Shepherd Kapelye / Intimate Hopes & Terrors: Tales from the Kishkes.Oriente Musik, RIEN CD 58, 2006.


I met Merlin Shepherd about ten years ago at KlezKamp. He was an awesome clarinet player then. He has gotten scarily better. On this outing he gathered up a posse of so-far-unknown-to-the-west klezmer players of the former Soviet Union. The ones you find jamming non-stop at the Klezmer festivals and blowing everyone"s minds. These guys already knew the repertoire from KlezKamp, so Merlin wrote new stuff.
This is the sort of CD I"ve been waiting for, for years. New klezmer music. But, at this first listen (the CD only arrived today), it"s klezmer that manages to sound both traditional, but also as though it were written this year (which it was). This isn"t the worshipful, "I can write like the old guys" klezmer. This is the "okay, the old folks stole all our best ideas. let"s work on some new ideas" klezmer.
Must get the word out now.

Ari Davidow on November 27, 2006