10/08/2025
The melodies and rhythms of faraway cultures come together in an exuberant, poignant and rollicking concert of music from Bulgaria and Romania and featuring music from a new recording “Strange Tongue”, a newly translated collection of traditional Yiddish songs reimagined and expanded in English by Ira Khonen Temple.
Tickets are available in advance at musicwithoutborders.bpt.me and at the door. $25 general admission includes refreshments after the concert and the opportunity to meet the musicians. Compact disc recordings will be available for sale. There is free parking (while it lasts!).
John Thomas (piano) has a passion for the music of Bulgaria. He has traveled there several times where he creates music projects with notable musicians. He received a Fulbright Bulgaria grant for study, research and performance with a “music without borders” approach, combining Balkan rhythms, melodies and harmonies with American roots and blues styles. His music combines exuberance with emotion in equal measure.
Zoë Aqua (violin) grew up in Denver and lived for a decade in Brooklyn, playing klezmer music throughout her years. From 2021 to 2023, she lived in Romania courtesy of a Fulbright grant where she researched Transylvanian folk music. Her original compositions evoke the lost world of Jewish fiddlers in Transylvania. She has two recordings: “In Vald Arayn” (“Into the Forest) (2022) and “In a Sea of Stars” live from the Transylvanian synagogue tour (2025). “There’s an unbelievable power to her playing. It’s so ferocious…. Her playing is so intense it’s almost architectural, able to hold up the walls of the synagogues.” – Songlines Magaine 2025
Ira Khonen Temple (vocals, piano, accordion) is a multi-instrumentalist, music director, and embedded cultural organizer living in Brooklyn. A singer and tradition-bearer in the modern Yiddish revival, he brings listeners into a soundscape where language and legacy breathe again, not just as nostalgia, but as cultural survival. Ira says, “These songs we’ve inherited – about heartbreak, about rebellion – they’re not meant to sit behind glass. They need us. They need to be sung.” His music is a gateway to a defiant Yiddish poetic tradition of survival and solidarity. It is where q***r, trans songwriting meeting the urgent, living breath of Yiddish culture, From Transylvanian dance music to protest poetry from the lost Jewish capitals of Europe, Ira’s songs hold grief, joy, and radical defiance. The intimate lyricism of Ira’s writing is set off by the raucous virtuosity of violin and cello.
Raffi Boden (cello) has forged his own expansive musical style, combining his fluency on the cello with a reverence for folk traditions and a flair for experimentation and improvisation. A Juilliard graduate, he has a multi-dimensional career as a NY-based freelance musician performing with chamber trios and klezmer big bands in neighborhood haunts and at Carnegie Hall.
Ira, Zoë and Raffi each are co-founders of several klezmer bands.
stmaryoftheharbor.org
eastendmusic.org
johnwthomas.com
zoeaqua.com
iratemple.com
