Black Gospel and Jewish Klezmer music will rock, boogie and uplift the audience when The Klezmatics collaborate with power belter Joshua Nelson to bring “Brother Moses Smote the Water” to the Wisconsin Union Theater on Saturday, February 18, at 8 pm. The performance will be followed by a dance party with Yid Vicious, with free refreshments to ticket holders.

The Klezmatics have been playing for 20 years, yet show no signs of slowing down. Quite the opposite—in this collaboration with Joshua Nelson they play a fusion of their soul-stirring Jewish roots music and Nelson’s affecting Kosher-gospel vocals.

The genre was pioneered by Nelson, who took the Hebrew sounds prominent in many black synagogues and blended them with Jewish liturgical and African-American musical styles. Mixed with The Klezmatics’ ecstatic, wild, spiritual, provocative, reflective and danceable Yiddish music, it creates a new, exciting experience, not to be missed.
Singing in Hebrew and English, these superb musicians focus on the mythical exodus of the Hebrew slaves from Pharaoh’s Egypt and its modern-day parallels in the American Civil Rights movement.

The show is sponsored by the Wisconsin Union Directorate Theater Committee with additional support from WORT, 89.9 FM. General public tickets start at $18. UW-Madison students tickets are only $10 each. For more information, call the box office at 608-262-2201.

[Photo: Klezmatics].