Susan Lankin-Watts
Susan Hoffman Watts represents the youngest generation of an important klezmer dynasty that reaches back to the Jewish Ukraine of the 19th century, beginning with her great-grandfather, musician, composer, cornet-player, and poet, Joseph Hoffman. Susan is the sole living purveyor of the family’s traditional klezmer-style trumpet sounds which electrified audiences for decades. Susan and the Hoffman family are the features of several televised documentaries.
In addition to playing with a variety of noted klezmer musicians from around the world, Hoffman Watts has recorded, performed and sang with, Frank London’s Klezmer Brass All-Stars, David Krakauer, So-Called, Claire Barry, Mandy Pitankin, Dudu Fischer, Mikveh, Beyond the Pale, Shtreimel, The Klez Dispensers, Greg Wall, The Klezmatics, Henkus Netsky, and the Klezmer Concervatory Band. Susan also performs with her mother, the great klezmer drummer Elaine Hoffman Watts, in their Philadelphia-based group, the Fabulous Shpielkehs. I remember Klezmer, The Art of Klezmer Drumming with her mother is now a mainstay in the modern klezmer cannon. Susan’s first solo CD is Hartzklop.
Awarded Grants
2017
Art and Change Grant (ACG)
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Overview
Susan will produce a free klezmer concert that highlights klezmer music, or Eastern European Jewish folk music, by women composers who are not celebrated in the male-dominated genre. Susan will expand the scope of her volunteer community band to include more instruments, more musicians, an expanded repertoire, and increased frequency of rehearsals. The concert will showcase women who are composing vocal and instrumental pieces that speak to their sensibilities and push the form stylistically and technically.
Partner
2012
Art and Change Grant (ACG)
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Overview
Susan will produce a monthly gathering of instrumentalists, dancers, and vocalists learning the basics of klezmer music, dance and song in order to create new klezmer dances and songs and performing them for the community. She will work with a community of people interested in making culture in a new way. Yiddish has been called a dead language and new generations have few ways of connecting to a rich tradition that shows how Jews lived and celebrated. Because there is not a current venue for families to come together and develop their own connections to the klezmer culture, which Susan grew up in, she would like to provide a place that uses learning, performing, and community participation as a means to that end.
Art and Change Grantees" class="img-fluid" />
