Veretski Pass Concert Reviews

…In an explosive concert of the trio Veretski Pass in a sold out hall of the Horst Castle. Veretski Pass introduced their CD in a world premier. The name of this new ensemble is taken from the actual Carpathian mountain pass where Cookie Segelstein’s father was born. Extremely virtuosic klezmer sounds with jazzy dance inspired passages and repeated rhythmic changes make for the intense contrast between Heaven and Earth, God and Finite Human existence. After only a few measures, Horowitz, tsimbl and accordion, the fiery Cookie Segelstein violin and viola, and Stuart Brotman, bass, contradicted the assumption that klezmer music is from an extinct cultural epoch. Klezmer lives!

Because the music is the ideal platform for influences that come out of the human micro and macro cosmos. The trio was ecstatically cheered.

Westphälische Rundschau, April 19, 2004

Veretski Pass with Horowitz, Brotman and Segelstein played their traditional East European Jewish music in the sold out glass auditoium of the Horst Castle. They performed the melodies of the Tatars, from the Ukraine, Rumania and of course also from the Carpathian region of the Veretski Pass, over which many Jews traversed. Fiery and virtuosic dance music, and melancholy alternated back and forth and transported the listeners through an emotionally intensive musical journey which captured much of the rural originality. The audience was excited and danced at the end, new sense ofabandon…

Buersche Zeitung; Ruhr Nachrichten, April 19, 2004

…Joshua Horowitz, who together with Stuart Brotman is one of the leading musicians of the traditional klezmer performance style. They make music together with violinist Cookie Segelstein in the group Veretski Pass which stands as one of the best ensembles of the klezmer revival.

Christoph Wagner, Schwartzwälder Bote, Kultur #233, October 7, 2004

…Is klezmer music an international music of the soul? That was the impression that this concert left behind. Cookie Segelstein, a woman with a far away almost unreachable facial expression, seriously dressed and with intense and concentrated body language revealed with her violin an unlimited array of sound possibilities. She let her violin speak, cry, laugh and dance, and gave it a human voice with a multifaceted power of expression. Beside her was Joshua Horowitz, a master of the button accordion and the tsimbl, which is an old and almost forgotten instrument of klezmer music. On the trapezoidal instrument with three bridges and one hundred and five strings, he enchanted us with small spoonlike wooden hammers; creating a beautiful carpet of sound with a huge range and unbelievable speed and facility, evoking images of a long forgotten world. Finally, Stuart Brotman embodied a calm, steely power on the cello he played. He surrounded the (awake)vibrant violin, which was in a constant chase of duet and dance with the accordion and tsimbl, and gave a warm ground and backround to the music.

Everything about this evening was perfect: extraordinary people and music that touched the soul of this transfixed audience. Those who listened with their hearts found on this evening, their own roots.

Suzanne Grimm, Schwäeische Zeitung, October 11, 2004