Nat Seelen, founder of The Boston Festival of New Jewish Music, performs at House of Blues in Boston.<\/span> Courtesy of Nat Seelen<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\tBy Noah Hirsch-Rechter<\/a> Sign up for Forwarding the News<\/a>, our essential morning briefing with trusted, nonpartisan news and analysis, curated by Senior Writer Benyamin Cohen.<\/p>\n Boston has made some formidable contributions to American life \u2014 revolution; academia; the Kennedys; the Roomba<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 so it\u2019s hardly surprising that Beantown\u2019s status as a longtime hub of Klezmer music has received little attention.<\/p>\n However, the fifth edition of the Boston Festival of New Jewish Music \u2013 which opens Sunday, Oct. 5 \u2013 is not just the latest example of these proud Klezmer roots, but something more ambitious: Festival founder Nat Seelen told me his long-term aim is to make Jewish musical culture one of Boston\u2019s trademarks.<\/p>\n Seelen, who is one-fifth of the Klezmer band Ezekiel\u2019s Wheels, trained as a clarinetist at Boston\u2019s New England Conservatory of Music, which in the late 1970s helped to revive American Klezmer music. (Eastern European Jewish immigrants established a Klezmer tradition in the US around the turn of the 20th century, but it withered when the Holocaust destroyed its links to Europe.) Hankus Netsky, one of Klezmer\u2019s most celebrated musicians, sparked the revival as a student at the Conservatory by forming the Klezmer Conservatory Band in 1979, Seelen explained. The group has gone on to release 11 studio albums.<\/p>\n Several of Netsky\u2019s students, including Michael Winograd and Dan Blacksberg, became well-known Klezmer musicians in their own right. The Conservatory held a 40th anniversary concert for the Klezmer Conservatory Band in 2019. \u201cThere was a line of people down the block in the freezing winter cold,\u201d Seelen recalled. \u201cSecurity guards ended up having to set up at the last minute a live stream, before anyone was used to doing that. And it was really powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n The concert was both a resounding success and a proof of concept: enthusiasm for esoteric Jewish music in Boston, where Berklee College of Music, Boston University and Harvard have well-established Klezmer and Yiddish musical programs, had not declined.<\/p>\n In 2021, Seelen founded the Boston Festival of New Jewish Music, inspired by the city\u2019s musical talent (and concert-goers) \u2014 and by the pandemic. \u201cWe could make use of the fact that there are so many incredible musicians who are based in Boston \u2014 who studied here, who teach here, or who are just professional musicians working here \u2014 who were suddenly not on tour and could just come play a concert without having too much else going on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The festival opened Oct. 6, 2021 with a performance by Netsky proteg\u00e9 Zach Mayer. Much of the first year took place during the COVID pandemic, so the spontaneous virtual component of the 2019 anniversary concert was good practice for Seelen and his staff. Once restrictions ended, Seelen phased out the festival\u2019s streaming services in order to solidify the bond between Boston\u2019s residents and the nascent festival \u2014 that is, he wanted in-person connections. \u201cNow, it\u2019s become much more of a Boston thing to do,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m pretty happy with that.\u201d<\/p>\n The festival\u2019s official title \u2014 the Boston Festival of New<\/i> Jewish Music (emphasis mine) \u2014 reveals Seelen\u2019s other principal motivation: He wants it to be a launching pad for new approaches to Jewish musical culture. \u201cWe interpreted Jewish culture pretty broadly,\u201d said Seelen, adding that, in addition to Klezmer, the festival has featured Mizrachi and Ladino works, Hebrew-language performances, and even \u201cinstrumental music that doesn\u2019t have any language at all other than, you know, their instruments playing.\u201d<\/p>\n Though the ripples of the Israel-Hamas war have infiltrated almost every aspect of Jewish and Israeli life \u2014 just last week, for example, a London electronic music festival cancelled<\/a> a set by an Israeli DJ, following a blog post by a pro-Palestinian group that described the artist as a \u201clinchpin\u201d of Israeli nightlife \u2014 the festival has not faced similar pressure. Seelen told me that\u2019s partly because the festival isn\u2019t bankrolled by the Israeli Embassy, nor by any of the Israeli government\u2019s cultural programs, but instead by an array of New England-based nonprofits. He added that there\u2019s a natural affinity between the \u201cYiddish space\u201d and those liable to be more critical of the Israeli government. \u201cThere\u2019s probably a fair number of people who would be out protesting, but instead they\u2019re at our concerts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n As for what\u2019s next: Seelen wants the festival\u2019s musicians to go on tour. \u201cAs a musician, when you create a new work and play it once, it\u2019s powerful and beautiful and impactful,\u201d he said. \u201cBut when you do it every night for a month in a different city? That\u2019s what really makes an impact.\u201d<\/p>\n Sunday, Oct. 5, is opening night of the 2025-6 season of the Boston Festival of New Jewish Music,<\/a> at the Multicultural Arts Centre in Cambridge, Mass.<\/i>![\"Noah](\"https:\/\/forward.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/noah-178x300.png\")
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 3, 2025<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n