POLINA & MERLIN SHEPHERD

Merlin Shepherd is an acclaimed player, teacher and interpreter of traditional East European Klezmer Clarinet style. And he's a teacher, researcher and inspired composer, too.

He worked as a musical director for the Royal National Theatre, for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London. He coordinates KlezKamp and KlezFest London and teaches at KlezFest St. Petersburg, KlezFest Ukraine and KlezKanada. He worked and toured with Budowitz, Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars and Aaron Alexander's Midrash Mish-Mosh.
During is teaching activities in Eastern europe he met the musicians that nowadays form the "Merlin Shepherd Kapelye": the former Soviet Union Klezmer All Stars - or, in his own words, some of the greatest klezmer players in the world today.

Singer and pianist Polina Shepherd, of russian-jewish descent, ranked among the best choir leaders in former Soviet Union. She works as a musician and teacher and developed the teaching methods of choral singing. Moreover she's a gifted composer. Here is an original writer giving voice to a wealth of ideas, with vigour, and with originality.

Polina lives and works in Brighton/UK with her husband Merlin. They both are among the most innovative musicians in the Jewish Music scene - be it New Yiddish Song or Classic Klezmer.

The Merlin Shepherd Kapelye:
Intimate Hopes and Terrors – Tales from the Kishkes (2006), RIENCD58

The Polina Shepherd Vocal Experience feat. Quartet Ashkenazim:

Baym Taykh (2007), RIENCD64