Hankus Netsky (b.

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, 1955) is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, and ethnomusicologist. He chairs the Contemporary Improvisation Department at the

New England Conservatory The New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) is a private music school in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest independent music conservatory in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world. The conservatory is located on Hu ...

. Netsky is founder and director of the

Klezmer Conservatory Band The Klezmer Conservatory Band is a Boston-based group which performs traditional klezmer music; it was formed by Hankus Netsky of the New England Conservatory of Music in 1980. Originally formed for a single concert, they have gone on to release ...

, an internationally renowned Yiddish music ensemble, and serves as research director of the Klezmer Conservatory Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and perpetuation of traditional Eastern European Jewish music.

Education

Netsky holds a Ph.D. in

Ethnomusicology Ethnomusicology is the study of music from the cultural and social aspects of the people who make it. It encompasses distinct theoretical and methodical approaches that emphasize cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dim ...

from

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Epis ...

and bachelor's and master's degrees in

composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography *Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include v ...

from

Career

He has taught

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

Music at

Hebrew College Hebrew College is a private college of Jewish studies in Newton Centre, Massachusetts. Founded in 1921, Hebrew College is committed to Jewish scholarship in a pluralistic, trans-denominational academic environment. The president of the colleg ...

, the New England Conservatory, and

, and has lectured extensively on the subject in the US, Canada, and Europe. He has also designed numerous Yiddish culture exhibits for the Yiddish Book Center, where he served as Vice President for Education. His essays on klezmer music have been published by the University of California Press, the University of Pennsylvania Press, the University of Scranton Press, the University Press of America, and Hips Road. He is currently an instructor in

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

and contemporary

improvisation Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...

at the

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

. He is musical director for ''Eternal Echoes'', violinist Itzhak Perlman’s Sony recording and international touring project featuring cantor Yitzkhak Meir Helfgot, and ''In The Fiddler’s House'', a klezmer music video, recording, and touring project. He served as musical director and arranger for Joel Grey’s ''Borshtcapades ’94'', and was artistic director for ''A Taste of Passover'' and ''A Taste of Chanukah'', PBS and PRI concert productions that featured Theodore Bikel, recorded live at New England Conservatory and broadcast nationally. He was a consultant, arranger, and featured performer on ''To Life! America Celebrates Israel’s 50th'', broadcast internationally by CBS. In December 2002, he conducted the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in a special holiday program also featuring the Klezmer Conservatory Band. He has produced numerous recordings, including ten by the Klezmer Conservatory Band.

Honors and awards

He has been the recipient of the New England Conservatory’s outstanding alumni award and the Yosl Mlotek Award for the perpetuation of Yiddish culture, and was honored twice by New England Conservatory for excellence in teaching with the Louis Krasner and Lawrence Lesser awards.

Compositions

His film scores include, ''Theo Bikel: In the Shoes of Sholom Aleichem'' (2013), ''The Fool and the Flying Ship''(1991), a Rabbit Ears children’s video narrated by Robin Williams, ''The Forward: From Immigrants to Americans'' (1989), and ''The Double Burden: Three Generations of Working Women'' (1992). He adapted and composed the scores to the musicals ''Shlemiel the First'' (1994) (for the American Repertory Theatre) and ''King of the Schnorrers'' (2013), and composed the incidental music for the NPR radio series, ''Jewish Stories From Eastern Europe and Beyond''. His other significant compositions include ''The Trees Of The Dancing Goats'', for Rabbit Ears Radio (PRI), and ''Chagall’s Mandolins'', commissioned by the Niew Sinfonietta of Amsterdam.

References

External links

Klezmer Conservatory Band BiographiesPolish">An essay about Poles, Polish
Jewish musicians by Netsky*
Short Biography and Interviews With Hankus Netsky
* Klezmer: Music and Community in Twentieth-Century Jewish Philadelphia; Temple University Press, 2017. {{DEFAULTSORT:Netsky, Hankus 1955 births Living people Wesleyan University alumni Klezmer musicians Jewish American musicians New England Conservatory faculty American ethnomusicologists