Klezmerata Fiorentina

Klezmerata Fiorentina is a quartet comprised of principal players of one of the leading Italian operatic and symphonic orchestras, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino,In 2005, the violinist and violist Igor Polesitsky, clarinetist Riccardo Crocilla, accordionist and bassoonist Francesco Furlanich, and double bass player Riccardo Donati formed the ensemble to explore new ways of creative, unwritten elaboration of authentic Yiddish folk material, the musical heritage of the group’s founder, Igor Polesitsky. Old traditional melodies, collected in the early twentieth century through the groundbreaking fieldwork of a handful of pioneering ethnomusicologists, are seen in their full emotional complexity and interpreted by Klezmerata as the living voice of a now vanished, European Yiddish civilization.
Klezmerata Fiorentina’s work has attracted the attention and support of some of the world’s foremost classical music personalities. Zubin Mehta described the ensemble’s art as the “…perfect expression of both joy and sorrow. It is not just great entertainment, it is great music making!”