D. Zisl Slepovitch is an internationally renowned multiinstrumentalist (clarinetist, saxophonist, flutist, pianist, keyboardist, singer), conductor, composer, arranger, and music and Yiddish educator, based in New York City. Zisl Slepovitch is Musician in residence at Yale University’s Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies where he leads Archive’s musical project, Songs from Testimonies. He is the founder and artistic director of the Litvakus klezmer band, Zisl Slepovitch Trio, Zisl Slepovitch Ensemble, The Beary Brothers project, Assistant Music Director / Music Director / Music Coordinator, and woodwind player in many productions by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, including Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish directed by Joel Grey (off-Broadway). Slepovitch earned Ph.D. in musicology at Belarusian State Academy of Music (2006).
D. Zisl Slepovitch has taught Yiddish language and culture at The New School, served as educator and artist in residence at BIMA at Brandeis University, guest artist at University of Michigan, Indiana University, and Amherst College and Vassar College, a teaching fellow and performing artist at YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (New York City), University of Music and Performing Arts (Vienna), The Moscow Sefer Center, and Eshkolot Project (both in Moscow). Slepovitch’s theater, film, and TV contributions include consulting and acting in Defiance (Paramount), Eternal Echoes (Sony Classical), Rejoice with Itzhak Perlman and Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot (PBS), as well as original scores for fims and theatre.
D. Zisl Slepovitch has performed/ recorded / collaborated / worked with / wrote for Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell, Ron Rifkin, Joel Grey, Edward Zwick, Michael Alpert, Zalmen Mlotek, Paul Brody, Psoy Korolenko, Frank London, Sasha Lurje, Lipa Schmeltzer, Yale Strom, Lev “Ljova” Zhurbin, Cantor Yaakov Lemmer, and many others.
Slepovitch brought over from his home country Belarus a rich ethnographic collection of Belarusian Jewish music folklore collected together with Dr. Nina Stepanskaya (1954–2007). The collection was used in Slepovitch’s his multimedia concert program Traveling the Yiddishland. Some of Yiddish poetry by Zisl Slepovitch has been set to music and published in Israel, Russia, and the US. Over the years, Jewish music and Yiddish culture have remained the core elements of his creative inspirations.
Get the music by Zisl’s LITVAKUS’ klezmer band: Bandcamp (also as CDs), iTunes, Amazon MP3, CDBaby;
Music by Zisl Slepovitch Ensemble and him solo on Bandcamp (also vinyl and CDs)