Posted on February 4, 2025
Special concert-documentary by Simcha – Lincoln’s Klezmer Band
Date: Saturday 22nd March 2025
Venue: X-Church, Ashcroft Road, Gainsborough DN21 1BY
Time: 19.30
Simcha is presenting its concert-documentary called Kindertransport. This tells the story of the 1938 rescue of thousands of children from Nazi-occupied Europe. The UK took in nearly 10,000 mostly Jewish children from Germany, Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia.
Inspired by Robin Young, whose father came to the UK from Czechoslovakia as part of the Kindertransport, there are readings from contemporary sources describing the growing feeling of impending catastrophe across Europe. Simcha will be playing tunes that would have been heard by those Jewish communities, along with music specially composed by Simcha’s clarinetist Jonathan Rider, which intersperses the readings, including personal letters and poetry.
The second half of the evening is Simcha in concert. Simcha is a Yiddish word meaning Celebration and this 8-piece band has been wowing audiences around the region with wild dance tunes and heart-wrenching melodies from Eastern Europe’s pre-war Jewish communities, from the Baltics to the Balkans. They give concerts and play for events that get audiences spontaneously up and dancing.
This genre is known as Klezmer – from the Yiddish word Klezmorim, meaning itinerant musicians. Handed down by oral tradition, this secular music also made its way to the USA where it became absorbed into the New York jazz scene.