Margot Leverett

With a flair for lively showmanship grounded in perfected technique, Margot Leverett has become known as a master in the ever-expanding world of klezmer music.



Leverett's fingers began to master the clarinet during grade school. She went on to study classical music at Indiana University School of Music. While focusing on avant-garde music in New York City, 1985, she was asked by Frank Lond (trumpet) and Alicia Svigals (fiddle) to audition for a new band they were forming that became famous as the Klezmatics. Together with other band members Dave Lindsay (bass), Rob Chavez (clarinet), Lorin Sklamberg (vocals, accordion), and David Licht (drums), they learned the sounds of klezmer from scratchy old 78s dubbed and re-dubbed onto poor cassette tapes. These were the only resources available prior to the klezmer revival, and they were found in attics and basements of the senior Jewish generations in the U.S. and Europe. Digging into the old Eastern European roots for the klezmer sets of definite patterns (called ?ornaments'), and infiltrating this structure with her own repertoire of laugh-like staccatos to wailing moans became Leverett's passion. She studied the works of klezmer master Shloimke Beckerman, and studied with his son, Sid Beckerman, carrying on the traditions of European klezmer from the 1920s and 1930s.

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