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Yale Strom wasn't content with merely rounding up an itinerant klezmer band to provide music for the odd wedding or bar mitzvah around the San Diego area.
Instead, Strom, 28, a fiddler, formed his band, called Zmiros (Yiddish for melodies), to reexamine the Eastern European Jewish roots that he and many others his age had noticed were slipping away from them. In starting a klezmer band, Strom turned to the traditional style of entertainment that had been offered for centuries at Jewish celebrations.
But, of course, he also wanted a band that could really play. His 4-year-old group can be heard Sunday at 7:30 p.m. at Temple Beth Emet, 1770 W. Cerritos Ave. in Anaheim, in a concert presented by the Jewish Studies Institute Day School.
Zmiros works hard to establish its identity in the midst of a recent surge in klezmer bands and the attendant audience interest. The Klezmorim, a 10-piece klezmer band based in New York City, has toured and recorded extensively, and regional bands such as Seattle's Mazeltones-mixing traditional Yiddish music with a dash of '50s doo-wop-are making names for themselves.
"We think our approach and instrumentation is different," explained...