HANKUS NETSKY
Multi-instrumentalist
A multi-instrumentalist, composer, and ethnomusicologist, Dr. Hankus Netsky is co-chair of New England Conservatory’s Contemporary Improvisation Department and founder and director of the Klezmer Conservatory Band, an internationally renowned Yiddish music ensemble. He has composed extensively for film, theater, and television and collaborated on major creative projects with Itzhak Perlman, Robin Williams, Joel Grey, Theodore Bikel, and Robert Brustein. He has recorded with Balla Kouyate, Eden MacAdam-Somer, Ran Blake, Marty Ehrlich, Rosalie Gerut, Linda J. Chase, Theodore Bikel, Margot Leverett, and Cantor Jeff Warschauer. He received the Yosl Mlotek Award and a “Forward Fifty” award for his role in the resurgence of Eastern European Jewish ethnic musical culture and an Outstanding Alumni award from New England Conservatory. Hankus has also taught at McGill University, Hampshire College, Wesleyan University, and Hebrew College. His essays have been published by the University of California Press, the University of Pennsylvania Press, the University of Scranton Press, Hips Roads, Indiana University Press, and the University Press of America, and Temple University Press published his book Klezmer, Music and Community in 20th Century Jewish Philadelphia in 2015. He performs regularly with violinist and vocalist Eden MacAdam-Somer, gospel singer Janice “Octavia” Allen, and in former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky’s “PoemJazz” project. He served as vice president for education at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass., and has been a key figure in Jewish cultural education workshops, including Klezkamp, KlezKanada, Yiddish New York, Paper Bridge, Yidstock, Aleph, Dorot, Bolli, Me’ah, and Circle Lodge.