Trio Carpion -Contact

AVISHAI FISZ is a multi-talented performer, musician, composer, and linguist active in the Eastern European as well as modern and avant-garde musical scenes in Israel and worldwide. As an actor, he performed with Habima, Israel's national theater for ten years. Avishai taught Yiddish at the Trier University, Germany, as well as composer and musical director at the Trier municipal Theatre. He was guest lecturer on Yiddish folk music at the universities of Hamburg and Vilnius and in Sholem Aleikhem House in Tel-Aviv. He has performed extensively, including solo recitals of Jewish folksongs in Israel and Europe, and is currently accordionist of the Israeli ethno-jazz band Tizmoret. He has recorded and performed various chanson and song solo programs thoughout Europe, and released a commercial cd with Das Klezmer Orkester, Germany (2001).
Recent projects include “Di Bloye Kats” (The Blue Cat) – a cabaret extravaganza of Yiddish light songs of the 20’s-30’s, with singer Ruth Levin. He performs “Poylisher Harbst” (Polish Autumn) – a grotesque song cycle after texts of Yisroel Rabon (1898 Lodz - 1941 Ponar), composed by Tamar Gafni-Yeshurun. He is also the stage composer of the critically acclaimed Jerusalem Theatre Company's premier of Shulem.

	about trio carpion
	Taking its name from the talking carp of Jewish folk legend, Trio Carpion is Ashkenazi roots music at its best- a new Israeli ensemble performing the lush and evocative early 20th century repertoire from the Eastern European Jewish world as well as new compositions. Trio Carpion specializes in pre-war Yiddish and Romanian songs and the Eastern style of klezmer music rarely heard in Israel. With a deep respect for tradition and a modern sensibilty, Trio Carpion boasts three of Israel's hottest young virtuosi: vocalist and accordionist Avishai Fisz, violinist Daniel Hoffman, and multi-instrumentalist and euphonium player Gershon Waiserfirer.
	AVISHAI FISZ is a multi-talented performer, musician, composer, and linguist active in the Eastern European as well as modern and avant-garde musical scenes in Israel and worldwide. As an actor, he performed with Habima, Israel's national theater for ten years. Avishai taught Yiddish at the Trier University, Germany, as well as composer and musical director at the Trier municipal Theatre. He was guest lecturer on Yiddish folk music at the universities of Hamburg and Vilnius and in Sholem Aleikhem House in Tel-Aviv. He has performed extensively, including solo recitals of Jewish folksongs in Israel and Europe, and is currently accordionist of the Israeli ethno-jazz band Tizmoret. He has recorded and performed various chanson and song solo programs thoughout Europe, and released a commercial cd with Das Klezmer Orkester, Germany (2001). Recent projects include “Di Bloye Kats” (The Blue Cat) – a cabaret extravaganza of Yiddish light songs of the 20’s-30’s, with singer Ruth Levin. He performs “Poylisher Harbst” (Polish Autumn) – a grotesque song cycle after texts of Yisroel Rabon (1898 Lodz - 1941 Ponar), composed by Tamar Gafni-Yeshurun. He is also the stage composer of the critically acclaimed Jerusalem Theatre Company's premier of Shulem.
	GERSHON WAISERFIRER , baritone, strings, was born in 1972 in Tajikistan and emigrated with his family to Israel in 1980. His passion for music emerged at the age of 11, when he started playing the piano, the baritone horn, and later the trombone at the Conservatory in Tel-Aviv. After traditional studies at the Tel-Aviv Concervatory, the Center of Eastern Music and Dance in Jerusalem, and the Rimon School of Jazz and Contemporary Music, he continued his musical development mostly by studying on his own. He also studied acting at Beit Tsvi, one of the leading theater schools in Israel. Together with theater studies, he began exploring various string instruments, including the guitar, the oud, and the jumbush. He is currently one of the most sought-after oud players in Israel. Owing to his virtuoso playing on a variety of instruments, he is a regular member of a large number of successful musical groups in Israel. Waiserfirer has participated in many festivals in Israel as well as in New York, San-Francisco, Los Angeles, Rochester, Chicago, Boulder, Berlin, Barcelona, Madrid, and the Netherlands.
	DANIEL HOFFMAN , violin, a descendant of a long line of Bessarabian furriers, was born and raised near Los Angeles and moved to Israel in June of 2005. After graduating from the Manhattan School of Music in New York, he quickly began un-learning most of what he'd been taught and turned his attentions to Eastern European Jewish music and formed several klezmer bands in San Francisco. In 1992, he co-founded Davka, combining Ashkenazi music with jazz and Middle-Eastern rhythms. Davka has released five CDs of original music, including four on the Tzadik label. He also founded the Klez-X (formerly the SF Klezmer Experience) and has developed a reputation as one of the foremost experts of the Yiddish violin style, recording and performing with the top players in the field. Hoffman has received numerous composition grants, including from Meet The Composer and the NEA. He has written two new scores for the silent films “The Golem” and “Jewish Luck”. He composed music for “David in Shadow and Light,” a new musical (with librettist Yehuda Hyman) based on the King David story which premiered at Theatre J in Washington DC in 2008. In Israel he performs with J.C. Jones and Nory Jacoby in Between The Strings, a free music string trio,in the Greek rembetico group Perach Adom, and is currently performing in the new Jerusalem Theater Company comedy “Are You Happy Yet?” His latest releases are Davka Live and a remix of the Klez-X Harbst disc, KLZXRMX.
photos by Jakob Linhard