Shpilkis is an 8-piece klezmer brass band (brass, woodwinds and drums) from Seattle, Washington, located on the unceded land of the Coast Salish Peoples and specifically the Duwamish Tribe. Since forming in 2017, Shpilkis continues to transform potential into kinetic energy on dance floors at simkhas, festivals, clubs, holiday events, and block parties. Shpilkis creates a soundscape that is chaotic, loose, and raucous, while also being organized and thoughtful. Every instrument intertwines and argues about the melody, pushing and pulling at the rhythm, and kicking tukheses out of their seats to dance! A fixture in the Yiddish music scene of the Pacific Northwest, Shpilkis brings the party to the local klezmer scene and Yiddishkayt to the party music scene alike. 

Just as each instrument brings its own unique voice to Shpilkis’ unified sound, each member arrives to Yiddish music from a hodgepodge of backgrounds: religious, spiritual, secular, pagan; east-coasters, midwesterners, and Pacific Northwesterners born & raised; Jews and gentiles; music-educated and self-taught, with foundations in jazz, punk, folk, classical, and pop. Some Shpilkins have had more exposure to klezmer traditions than others, and we do our best to learn from one another, playing with tradition rather than staying strictly inside it. Being in diaspora from such centers of Yiddish culture as New York City, Shpilkis creates a musical identity unique to this time and place, our own special sound that could only come from Seattle in the 21st century.