THE KLEZMATICS — WE WERE MADE FOR THESE TIMES – Songs of Protest, Resilience, and Radical Joy 40th Anniversary Tour  From leading the klezmer revival to soundtracking social justice across four decades

The Klezmatics are the only klezmer band ever to win a Grammy — and for the past 40 years, they’ve done more than revive a genre. They’ve revolutionized it!  (Read the full press release…)

The Klezmatics return with a powerful new album and live program. Celebrating 40 years at the forefront of global roots music, the band brings We Were Made For These Times to the stage — a bold, cross-cultural project shaped by songs of protest, resilience, and radical joy.

Blending Yiddish song with Black gospel, Latin rhythms, and avant-jazz, The Klezmatics transform tradition into a living, evolving musical language — urgent, joyful, and deeply relevant today.

The new album features an extraordinary lineup of collaborators including Sofía Rei, Joshua Nelson, Lavender Light Gospel Choir, Enver İzmaylov, William Parker, James Brandon Lewis, Janis Siegel, and La Manga.

Released on May 1, 2026 (International Workers’ Day), the album launches a U.S. tour celebrating four decades of fearless music-making — and a renewed call for solidarity through song.

The Klezmatics are world-renowned and Grammy-winning superstars of the klezmer world. They erupted out of New York City’s East Village in 1986 and revitalized klezmer for the new century with music that is steeped in Eastern European Jewish tradition and spirituality, while incorporating contemporary themes such as human rights and anti-fundamentalism with eclectic musical influences including Arab, African, Latin and Balkan rhythms, jazz and punk.

In the course of nearly 40 years they have released 13 albums of wild, spiritual, provocative, reflective, and ecstatically danceable music, forever redefining and transcending traditional labels.

Current concert offerings include Symphonic Klezmer*, Havana Nagila, Brother Moses Smote the Water with Special Guest Joshua Nelson and Woody Guthrie’s Happy Joyous Hanukkah & Wonder Wheel. For Lisa Gutkin solo bookings please Click Here

The Klezmatics have collaborated with numerous musical luminaries including folk hero Arlo Guthrie, classical legend Itzhak Perlman, Israeli pop icons Chava Albertstein and Ehud Banay, beat poet Allen Ginsberg, The Master Musicians of Jajouka, the Ben Folds Five, and Kosher Gospel singer Joshua Nelson.

Their work has extended to numerous theater, film, dance and television projects, including Pulitzer Prize Winning playwright Tony Kushner’s “A Dybbuk” and “It’s An Undoing World.” and Pilobolus Dance Theatre’s “Davenen.”

The Klezmatics have reached millions through performances and features on CBS’s “Late Night with David Letterman,” PBS’ “Great Performances,” BBC’s “Rhythms of the World,” BBC’s “John Peel Show,” various NPR programs (“A Prairie Home Companion” with Garrison Keillor, “New Sounds Live” and “Soundcheck”), CBS’s “Nightwatch,” FOX’s “After Breakfast,” “MTV News,” and “Sex and the City.” Additionally, their song “NY Psycho Freyelkhs” is a theme song for Air America Radio’s “The Al Franken Show.”

They have performed in over twenty countries at some of the most storied venues and renowned festivals worldwide, including Central Park Summerstage, Carnegie Hall, Pirineos Sur (Spain), Colours of Ostrava (Czech Republic), Pohoda Festival (Slovakia), Jazzsomer Graz (Austria), and the Heimatklänge Festival (Germany).

The Klezmatics have garnered numerous awards and accolades throughout their career, including a 2006 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album (for “Wonder Wheel: Lyrics by Woody Guthrie.”), a New York Jewish Music Award (Best Klezmer Band, 2006), a GLAMA (Gay and Lesbian American Music Award) and the German Critics Award (twice), and have topped the Billboard world music charts on numerous occasions.

They’ve also participated musically in the 2014 art Exhibit, Letters to Afar: By Péter Forgács.