Carl Shutoff (clarinet in C) and Laurie Andres (accordion) constitute the Kesselgarden Klezmer Duo in Seattle, WA, where we have been playing together for the last 16 years. Our name comes from the way Yiddish-speaking Jews pronounced “Castle Garden”, the facility on the southern tip of Manhattan where Jewish immigrants entered this country prior to the opening of Ellis Island in 1892. Among first and second generation Jews, the people we honor with our music, the term Kesselgarden was eventually generalized to mean any situation that was noisy, confusing and chaotic. We are a traditional band, playing Eastern European instrumental Jewish music of the 19th and 20th centuries, with original, sweet and joyful arrangements which are neither noisy nor confusing.
