Welcome to the 2008 Jewish Music Festival

Frank London

Listen to The Bottom of the Well

Frank London appears in...

The 23rd JMF presents its first Shofar Award to Frank London, trumpeter, composer and band leader for his creativity, generosity of spirit and profound contribution to contemporary Jewish music.

Frank London has been called a passionate intelligent soloist and one of the best jazz trumpeters to emerge since 1980. In 2007 his band, The Klezmatics, won the Grammy for Best World Music Album.

Bandleader: of his solo CD release, Hazonos (with Cantor Jacob Mendelson), Stephen Silberman of Wired Magazine writes, “One of the Most Stunning Albums of the Year – 5 Stars. On this album, Frank London has fused the Jewish art of cantorial singing with instrumental accompaniment that suggests both the ancient, soul-wrenching melodies of the High Holy Days and the most lyrical and reflective avant-garde jazz. The result is one of the most important albums of 2005 — a giant step forward for London, for John Zorn’s Tzadik label, and for jazz itself.”

Trumpeter: has made about thirty of his own recordings and is featured on over 200 with artists such as John Zorn, LL Cool J, Mel Torme, Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy, LaMonte Young, They Might Be Giants, Jane Siberry, Ben Folds 5, Mark Ribot, Maurice El Medioni and Gal Costa, Matchbox 20’s Rob Thomas, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Itzhak Perlman. He has been featured on HBO’s Sex and the City, at the North Sea Jazz Festival and the Lincoln Center Summer Festival, and was a co-founder of Lés Misérables Brass Band and the Klezmer Conservatory Band.

Composer: recently featured artist creating new works for large ensembles in Krems, Austria’s “Glatt und Verkehrt” festival, Sejny, Poland’s “Musician’s Raft,” and at “Todos Os Voces Do Mundo” in São Paulo, Brazil. Commissioned to compose percussion and brass quartet music for Carnegie Hall’s Musical Explorers concerts; the song-cycle An Alphabet in the Sky.

Film & theater: in addition to A NIGHT IN THE OLD MARKETPLACE, he composed

• the musical Green Violin with Elise Thoron (winner, Barrymore Award 2003 Best New Musical) which was produced in Amsterdam last year and is to be put up in Moscow and New York in the next year.
• the musical On Words and Onwards (with Glen Berger) which will be put on by Cardinal Stages next year.
• was music director for David Byrne and Robert Wilson’s The Knee Plays
• music for Tony Kushner’s A Dybbuk, John Sayles’ The Brother from Another Planet, Pilobolus Dance Theater’s Davenen, Great Small Works’ The Memoirs of Gluckel of Hameln, Vit Horejs’ Once There was a Village, and Min Tanaka’s Romance.
• the soundtracks to the Shvitz. A Cantor’s Tale, and Divan (Winner, Best Soundtrack, Monaco Film Festival),

His other recordings include Invocations (cantorial music); Frank London’s Klezmer Brass Allstars’ Di Shikere Kapelye and the Brotherhood of Brass (with Boban Marcovic Orkestar and Cairo’s Hasaballa Brass Band); Nigunim and The Zmiros Project (Jewish mystical songs, with Klezmatics vocalist Lorin Sklamberg); The Debt (film and theater music); Scientist at Work the soundtracks to The Shvitz, a Cantor’s Tale, and Divan, 8 CDs with The Klezmatics, and 5 with the Hasidic New Wave.

Frank London Website