“If you raise the baton, they will come,” says Wendy Marcus, musical director of Seattle’s KlezKidz, who expects a large audience at the group’s first road trip to Palo Alto next weekend.
At the third annual “To Life! A Jewish Cultural Street Festival” on Sunday, Oct. 6, KlezKidz will play three sets on two outdoor stages, from an exuberant repertoire Marcus and her husband have compiled for the ensemble.
For seven years the group has played in Seattle at synagogue services, menorah lightings and folk music festivals. The KlezKidz, who aren’t all kids, range in age from “about 8 to 80,” Marcus said.
The group is sponsored by Seattle’s Temple Beth Am, where violinist Marcus is lay cantor. “What started out with a few kids, augmented by parents who ‘used to play,’ has blossomed into a 40-member intergenerational ensemble with regular rehearsals and up to eight concerts a year,” she said.
Sam Gray, age 13 and in his third year playing tenor saxophone for KlezKidz, is looking forward to the trip to Palo Alto, where they will play on California Avenue.
“We’ve never gone this far. It’s really exciting that our band’s good enough,” he said, adding that he hopes his relatives from Petaluma will be able to come see him play.
Sam said his favorite pieces are “the ones that are most complex,” particularly “Katznjammer.”
Sam’s mom, Amy Gray, who plays clarinet in the group, said “Katznjammer’s” tempo is “as fast as humanly possible, especially raucous with a long brass solo.”
Grau said she first heard the KlezKidz play at a holiday event at the temple. Afterward, she approached Marcus.
“It’s so happy,” she said. “I haven’t played in 33 years, but I want to be in it,” she told Marcus.
To prepare, Gray found a teacher and practiced during the summer.
“Even though it’s not the most difficult music, it still requires a certain amount of musicality,” she said.
She added that she waited until Sam reached an appropriate proficiency before he joined, and that her daughter, Anna, 10, will be joining the group also.
Director Marcus has three performing children: Lev, 8, and Shira, 11, who sing, and Eve, 13, who plays the violin. Marcus and her husband, musician Shawn Weaver, seek music that is “easy enough for up-and-coming musicians and interesting enough for audiences throughout the West.” She said her favorite performance piece is “The Klezkracker,” a “demented version of ‘The Nutcracker,'” written by Weaver.
The music they select for the Palo Alto fair will be “upbeat, with crowd participation and we’ll maybe even teach a dance or two,” she said.
Marcus isn’t worried about the Bay Area weather.
“We do Chanukah every mid-December, when the weather is hideous. We wear our slickers,” she said.
The KlezKidz’s debut road trip came about serendipitously, according to Jessica Saal, entertainment co-chair for “To Life!” While considering on-stage events for the festival, she came upon some KlezKidz literature and thought a musical group would be good to alternate with the storytellers and puppeteers. Dialing the KlezKidz’s number, she didn’t recognize the area code but still assumed it was in Northern California.
“I didn’t realize where I was calling, but one thing led to another, and once they wanted to make the trip, they made it happen. They’re really gangbusters up there,” Saal said.
The group’s instruments will make the trip to Palo Alto in a van and the performers will fly down on Saturday night. They will be bused to Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills and sleep on the floor of the social hall. Then on Sunday they will be bused to the street fair, according to Amy Gray. She likens the travel logistics for the enthusiastic group to “herding cats.”
Gray said as far as she knows, KlezKidz has a unique format.
“I don’t think there’s anything like it, where kids and parents play music. It’s a unique and wonderful way to be with your children, free of power struggles, and to share the joy of performing, of pure music and happiness.”