The klezmer tradition and its danceable yet poignant melodies will be interpreted on clarinet and accordion, two idiomatic instruments of this music that has travelled from Eastern Europe.

Gabriel Paquin-Buki is a clarinettist renowned on the Montreal scene for the subtlety of his playing and the diversity of his interpretations. He is a graduate of the Université de Montréal, where he completed a bachelor’s degree in performance in the class of Jean-François Normand.

In 2010, he founded the group Oktopus, an octet of Eastern European music (klezmer, Balkan, classical) with whom he has performed over 250 concerts in Quebec, Canada and Europe. His arrangements and compositions on the albums Lever l’encre and Hapax have earned him Juno and Canadian Folk Music Award nominations.

In 2017, he immersed himself in books to complete a master’s degree in comparative literature at the Université de Montréal. In his thesis, he explored the delicate subject of laughter in Holocaust literature. Since then, he has divided his time between travelling, music and words.

Josh Dolgin, aka Socalled, is a Canadian musician, rapper and producer renowned internationally for his unique style, which blends hip-hop, klezmer, folk music and electro. Born in Montreal, he is also a pianist and accordionist, and has taught the instrument at London’s Klezfest, where he has also run ‘hiphopkele’ workshops.

A key figure on the contemporary klezmer scene, Josh Dolgin has collaborated with renowned artists such as David Krakauer, Michael Winograd, Fred Wesley, Chilly Gonzales, Sophie Solomon and The Mighty Sparrow. His SoCalled collective project has made its mark with concerts such as Hip Hop Hanukkah, which celebrates the meeting of Jewish cultures and urban music.

In 2010, the National Film Board of Canada devoted a documentary to him, The ‘Socalled’ Movie, which retraces the adventure of the first ‘Klezmer Cruise’ on the Dnieper River in Ukraine. In 2013, he also wrote the remix of Moe Koffman’s Curried Soul, which became the official theme for CBC Radio One’s As It Happens.