Introducing the Kol Haruach Klezmer Band
& The New Klezmer Quintet
Brian Choper – Drums – Band Manager
Drummer Brian Choper, Kol Haruach’s Manager, is a versatile musician, experienced in Rock, Jazz, Blues, Swing, Ragtime, Klezmer and musical theatre. His music career began at the prestigious Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Maryland, in whose elite music program he performed with the Jazz band, concert band and symphony orchestras. These ensembles traveled and won numerous awards in competition both domestically and abroad. In 1983, Brian won first prize at the Vienna International Music Festival Competition for classical timpani. While in college, he studied with Marshall Maley, renowned drummer/percussionist, head of the Percussive Arts Society in Virginia. From 1983 to 1985 Brian studied with the late legendary drummer Buddy Rich. In 1985, Brian began playing Klezmer, as the first drummer to play with the Capital Klezmers (at the time one of the top three Folk bands in the country), where he participated in the International Music Festival in Safed, Israel.
Upon leaving Capital Klezmers in 1989, Brian joined the Machaya Klezmer Band, and in 1997 played in and produced the group’s second CD, “What A Machaya”. This recording became the number two selling Klezmer album for that year and was rated as such in the prestigious Moment Magazine (August 1997). In 1997 (while still with Machaya) he joined Nexus, a highly respected local Rock band. He left both Machaya and Nexus in 2001, and formed his own Klezmer band, The Kol Haruach Klezmer Band. With the Klezmer band moving forward, in 2007 Brian organized three other bands; The Choper Jazz Project (contemporary Jazz), The Jazz Connection (Swing Jazz) and Nexus (classic Rock & Roll), a band named after his 1990′s Rock band. He spends most of his time managing these groups.
Fred – Clarinet & Sax – Music Director
Fred, presently Principal Clarinetist in the Annapolis (Maryland) Symphony is a Juilliard graduate who studied with the late Leon Russianoff. Fred made his New York Debut at Carnegie Hall as the winner of the Artists International Competition.
Some of his awards include the Montpelier Cultural Arts Center Recital Contest, Montpelier, MD (1988); the Guggenheim Concerts Band Performance Award, New York City (1981); the Milton Kahn Memorial Concerto Competition, Westchester, NY (1979).
Lou – Keyboard/Vocalist/Composer
Lou is a pianist/singer/songwriter who has been playing piano and composing for nearly 50 years. In short, he grew up in south New Jersey where he started playing at age 5, started writing as a teen, became serious about music and began composing and arranging. He attended Rowan University and earned 2 BA’s, one in music with a concentration in composition and arranging, and a second in history/political science, with a concentration in Middle East politics and religion.
After college he toured with various Pop groups, performing extensively in Atlantic City, where he played shows at the casino resorts. He opened the Mandarin Hotel in ’59 and ran a jazz trio, performing smooth jazz there for about 2 1/2 years. Lou ran his own show band in the seventies and eighties while at resorts and casinos. Then it got interesting.
Lou joined the army in 1986. In 1994 he auditioned and won a spot in the Washington Premier US Army Band, Washington DC, picked himself up and moved to Stafford, Virginia near DC. He settled, and has resided in the DC area ever since, working for the Army Band. This year will mark his 24th year with that band, where he is both pianist, writer and arranger.
Some career highlights:
One of his compositions was premiered at Carnegie Hall. Another was premiered at a Washington annual 1812 Concert on the Mall, where he was given the honor of singing the song for the first time in public.
Lou has played. For several presidents, vice presidents and foreign dignitaries. These include Nixon, Carter, Reagan, George H W Bush, Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama. He has also performed for several cabinet members and senators including Senator Ted Kennedy. Lou played exclusively for Colin Powell while he was Secretary of State, and has played for the King and Queen of Sweden. Lou was Al Gore’s personal pianist during the Clinton years. He also played for Dick Cheney.
Lou has performed with many well known musicians, including Clark Terry, Lew Soloff, Dennis DiBlasio (of the Maynard Ferguson Band), Dave Koz, Darryl Worley, Trisha Yearwood, Mark Wills, Craig Morgan, The Soul Survivors, Harold Melvin And The Blue Notes, Teddy Pendergast’, Billy Paul, Danny And The Juniors, The Crystals, the Ink Spots , Anna Marie, Alberghetti, Al Martin, Enzo Stuarti.
“Pershing’s Own” (The US Army Band) regularly performs numerous patriotic compositions written by Lou. Recordings include 4 CD’s of patriotic music featuring two of Lou’s scores the CD’s were named after. He also has a composition featured in the award winning documentary, “Why We Fight”. One of these CD’s won him a Grammy nomination.
Some of the compositions he wrote for the Army include The Flag Still Flies High, Here’s To America, The Homeland, America Means Everything to Me, An Affair of The Heart.
Charles – alternate keyboard
Starting with classical piano lessons at age 10, while still in grade school, Charles realized that an essential part of his self-expression revolved around music. During this period, he studied piano, organ, and synthesizers. His has cultivated his own sound that is modern and hip. He loves playing the high-energy, foot-tapping music that makes people get up and dance.
Because of his performance style, Charles has played behind such major artists as Jackie Wilson, The Belmonts, The Exciters, The Coasters, The Happenings, and many others. Not only was he a member and arranger for several rock, show, blues, and country bands including The Fabulous Show Stoppers, Banned in Boston, and Pegasus; he led many of these bands, organizing them and finding them work. He has also played in and led several jazz combos, earning him a reputation for being extremely creative and modern in his approach to the music.
Charles has also acted as a last-minute roll-in for rock, blues, and country bands who needed a keyboard player for a gig with no time for rehearsals and often no charts – playing the entire show by ear. He worked as a session producer and musician in Charlotte, something he retains an interest in doing more of even today. During this time, he was recruited to join the house band at Possum Hollow playing country and western.
His projects have included playing with jazz-rock fusion bands, The Brown Street Band playing Weather Report and other modern fusion works, and the Keith Wesby Group playing Keith’s original music. Currently, he is managing a rock, pop, blues show band called Thunder and Lightning as part of his agency work with Washington’s Entertainment Connection, and still manages to play jazz on the side.
Dan – Bass
Dan graduated in 1976 from the University of Maine with Honors with a BA in Music Education. He attended the New England Conservatory of Music, 1971-1973. He was a student of William Rhein, the assistant principal bassist of the Boston Symphony, 1971-1976. Dan was a member of the applied faculty of the University of Maine, Augusta, as a bass instructor and combo director twice, 1976-1978 & 1989-1992. He was on the applied faculty of the University of Nevada, Reno, as a bass instructor, 1978-1989. This year will be his 5th year as bass instructor on the faculty of the National Guitar Workshop, McLean, VA.
Dan played with symphony orchestras in Portland, ME., Reno, NV., Abilene, TX., Springfield, MO., Fort Smith, AR. and Manassas, VA. He had the privilege of playing in a jazz trio with legendary guitarist Lenny Breau, 1977-1978. He’s played bass in all the major casino showrooms in Reno and Lake Tahoe, NV. While living in Austin, TX., he played in a Tango Quintet, a Salsa Band, a Latin Jazz sextet, a Swing Quintet, and an improvising string quartet.
Dan has played numerous shows in Branson, MO, and is well known for his TV appearances with the Live Lawrence Welk Show and Les Brown’s “Band of Renown”. Since moving to McLean, VA in 2006, Dan has been a pit orchestra performer for the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, the Signature Theater and the Studio Theaters, the Hippodrome, the Atlas Theater , Arena Stage Theater and the Shakespeare Theater.
Robert – Saxophone
Born in Philadelphia, Pa, Robert began his studies at the prestigious Settlement music school. Drawing on the rich Philadelphia heritage, he eventually studied with John Coltrane’s mentor Dennis Sandole. After mastering the clarinet, he began a serious focus on the Alto and Tenor saxophone. Borrowing his sound concept from the warmer tenor sax, he developed a sound that was Warm, and yet penetrating. It is this sound which garnished him recordings and performances with Odean Pope, Wallace Roney, Teddy Pendergrass, Fiidla, Joey DeFrancesco, Christian McBride, and his current assignment as a multi reedsman for the Duke Ellington Orchestra.
Judy – Violin
Judy is a versatile performer who pursued Doctoral studies in Violin Performance at the Graduate School and University Center of the City of New York. Her major teachers were Itzhak Perlman and Juilliard Professor Masao Kawasaki. Abroad, Judy was invited to perform solos and recitals in France, Germany and China. She also performed in chamber ensembles and orchestras throughout Israel and Jordan.
In America, she has performed in most major New York concert halls in Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. The Newspaper of Forbach in France wrote: “musician of top rate, thrilled the audience with talent and sensitivity”. The Konzer Rundschau of Trier in Germany said “her Mozart playing was clear, with a beautiful tone and expressive”. In 2002 she received a Fellowship to the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. She joined the US Army Strings in June, 2007.
Julie – Vocalist
Julie began performing in her youth, forming her own Top 40 Band at age 15 in her native Baltimore, MD. By the age of 18, she had worked with the band Sister Sledge and recorded the theme for a PBS Television production, all while continuing to cultivate her stage presence with appearances in musical theater.
She graduated with honors from Howard University where she studied classical voice. Julie developed her vocal style as a solo artist, performing to capacity audiences as an opening act for names like Whitney Houston, Natalie Cole, BeBe Winans, Grover Washington, Jr., and Les McCann. She came into her own as a singer and performer by entertaining audiences both big and small in concert, while performing long running weekly engagements at venues in and around the Washington Metropolitan area.
Julie appears regularly at the Ritz Carlton in Pentagon City, VA.
Juleen – Alternate Vocalist
Juleen came onto the Washington scene in the late 1980s as the lead singer for Doc Scantlin & His Imperial Palms Orchestra where she came to be known as “The Lovely Miss Julie.” During the course of her career Juleen has performed for a number of high caliber events including: the secret wedding of Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece and Marie Chantal Miller held in St. Albans, England; The New York Library’s Centennial Celebration; the grand re-opening of the legendary Rainbow Room in New York City; and the Culinary Olympics in Frankfurt, Germany. Juleen is in constant demand to perform at public and private events. She has the versatility to play with groups ranging from jazz duos, trios and quartets; to 6-8 piece ensembles; up to 14-piece big bands. You can also request her services as a classical soloist for weddings, funerals and corporate events.
