4pm to 5:30pm - Instrumental Klezmer (all levels) Workshop

Dmitri Gaskin and Raffi Boden will teach klezmer melodies, style and technique. No klezmer experience necessary but this workshop is intended for people who already know how to play their instruments.

Dmitri Gaskin (accordion) is an instrumentalist, composer, and arranger specializing in klezmer as well as Polish and Romanian folk music. He performs regularly with the klezmer bands Baymele and Tsvey Brider, and has shared the stage with the Louisville Orchestra, David Krakauer, Socalled (Josh Dolgin), Kurt Bjorling, and Veretski Pass, among others. In 2025, with Baymele, he released an instrumental album titled Sapling. Dmitri was the accordionist and music director for the 2022 production of Indecent at the San Francisco Playhouse. He serves as board chair of KlezCalifornia and festival director of the KlezCalYidFest. Dmitri studied accordion with Josh Horowitz and Alan Bern.

Raffi Boden has forged his own expansive style on the cello, combining his fluency on the instrument with a reverence for folk traditions and a flair for experimentation and improvisation. Since graduating from the Juilliard School, Raffi has cultivated a multi-dimensional career as a NY-based freelance musician, performing in ensembles from experimental chamber trios to raucous klezmer big bands and in venues ranging from intimate neighborhood haunts to Carnegie Hall. Raffi plays with the Magid Ensemble, Levyosn, The Golden Thread Ensemble, Tsvey Strunes (Jake Shulman-Ment and Abigale Reisman), contemporary classical quintet the Riwaya Ensemble, and chamber-jazz ensemble Simone Baron & Arco Belo, all of whom have albums coming out in 2025 and 2026.

7th Annual Jewish Music and Culture Festival