Mike Perlmutter has been performing klezmer, Balkan, and ceremonial Jewish music on saxophone and clarinet for over twenty years with groups such as Saul Goodman’s Klezmer Band, Inspector Gadje, Zoyres Eastern European Wild Ferment, and the Chochmat Halev Sacred Music Ensemble. He's an active community music organizer, and served four years on the Board of Directors for KlezCalifornia.

Outside of music he's an environmental conservation professional and activist.

He's also known for his pickling.
Dmitri Gaskin is an accordion player, composer, and arranger specializing in Klezmer and Polish folk music. He performs with several klezmer bands throughout California, including Baymele, Tsvey Brider, and Saul Goodman's Klezmer Band, and has taught for KlezCalifornia. Dmitri was the accordionist and music director of the 2022 production of Indecent at the San Francisco Playhouse. Dmitri studied accordion with Josh Horowitz and Alan Bern.
Jonathan Kipp is a percussionist, accordionist, singer, teacher, and accordion repairman based in Oakland. He plays a variety of styles including folk, jazz, classical, pop, electronic, and avant garde.
​Dave Rosenfeld brings a wealth of expression to Saul Goodman's Klezmer Band. Dave plays violin, and mandolin with the group, leads traditional dance, and performs as a bod'chn (traditional Yiddish wedding jester and master of ceremonies). Dave's bod'chn performance also incorporates juggling, comedy, and improvisation.

Dave holds a B.A. in Studio Art from UC Davis and an M.A. in Music Composition from Mills College. For more on Dave, visit www.creativityisvital.com.
Picture
Ilana Sherer is the best klezmer violin playing pediatrician in the Bay Area, at least she thinks. She has studied classical violin since age five, and began to perform klezmer as a member and then band leader of Yarmulkazi while at Brown University. She spent many years in Philadelphia where she played with various East Coast groups and organized a monthly community klezmer jam.

She spends her days (and nights) as a pediatrician who specializes in transgender youth.

​Click to read more about Ilana.
 Picture
​Originally from Ukraine, Zina Pozen grew up in a family of classical musicians, playing piano from a young age. In her house, salty Yiddish sayings, contraband Barry Sisters, Stravinsky and Poulenc, traditional Ukrainian and Moldovan tunes, Utyosov and Dunaevsky weaved their sounds together. After moving to the US, Zina picked up the accordion to play traditional music. Zina plays klezmer, Moldovan, Ukrainian, Turkish, Armenian, Greek rebetiko, and other styles. She was a founding member of Seattle's infamous (and famously fun) Bucharest Drinking Team. In the Bay Area, she plays with a wide variety of groups. Outside of music, Zina is a language technologist, training robots to help humans learn human languages.
Picture
Dan Cantrell is an Emmy award winning composer known for his innovative and evocative film and theatre scoring approach, as well as his virtuosic accordion, piano and musical saw performance.  He holds a BFA degree from CalArts where he majored in Composition and Piano performance.  Dan is a self taught master of the accordion, excelling at Balkan, Romani, Eastern European, and klezmer styles.   In recent years, Dan has performed and recorded with Tom Waits, Joanna Newsom, Beats Antique, Bono, Danny Elfman, members of the Klezmatics and Fishbone.  Dan’s broad ranging musical portfolio, including compositions for video games, cartoons, film, television, web broadcast, and self-produced albums can be heard at www.bellowhead.com
Ivan Velev's tapan playing, like his spirit, is joyous and playful.  He's also a charismatic Balkan folk dance leader. Originally from Bulgaria, he brings a deep love and connection to Eastern European music and dance traditions and always makes it FUN!
Sean Tergis’s drumming draws on folk music from the Middle East, Turkey, Greece and the Balkans.  Sean has been gigging in and around his home city of San Francisco since 2002. He has toured locally and internationally, has studied percussion in Istanbul, and has taught at music camps.  Sean performs with Saul Goodman, Inspector Gadje Balkan Brass, MWE, and Istanbul Connection.  He produces the weekly Balkan Sundays series in San Francisco.
Picture
Tubist Johny Blood has played in polka, klezmer, New Orleans brass band, trad jazz, rock and any other band he can fit his big horn into.  In the 80s he played with slightly-famous bands The Magnetic Fields and Combustible Edison as well as with the electric tuba duo Blood & Stone.  He now writes and performs with the theatrical/musical group The Book of Jones.
Bassist Chris Bastian is an East Bay native and has also lived and worked as a musician in Los Angeles, New York City, Quito, and Santiago de Chile. He has performed with a variety of ensembles in a wide range of musical traditions, from opera to huayno.
Jonathan Simon performs as an orchestral percussionist, on drum set, and as a xylophone soloist. Jonathan is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music where he studied classical percussion with Michael Rosen and electronic music with Gary Lee Nelson, as well as the New World School of the Arts and the Interlochen Center for the Arts where he studied classical percussion with Keith Aleo.  Jonathan has performed and recorded with Bay Area groups including the Magik*Magik Orchestra, Zoyres, Gojogo, Contare Con Vivo, the SF Wind Symphony, and the Saul Goodman Klezmer Band. Jonathan is the co-founder/co-curator of the East Bay Music Collective, building community and performance opportunities for local musicians. Outside of music, Jonathan is a serial chief technology officer for startups... this is the Bay Area after all!
 Picture
Bruce Bierman is one of the Bay Area’s most sought after Jewish dance leaders.  Where there is Bruce, there is a party!  Bruce’s charismatic leading gets everyone on the dance floor with fun and interesting steps and patterns that are easy and fun to follow.  Circles, spirals, bridges, contra lines, square, partner, and solo . . . Bruce keeps it fun and interesting, and rooted in varied Jewish and world dance traditions such as klezmer, Chasidic, Yemenite, Israeli, contra, and swing.  Bruce is a frequent presenter for the L.A. Skirball Museum and Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco.  He was a member of the acclaimed Aman Folk Dance Ensemble of Los Angeles and presents his 'Joy of Jewish Dance' weekly in the East Bay.  For more events and classes write to Bruce at [email protected]. 
Picture
Saul Goodman comes from a musical tradition tracing back to the old world shtetl of Szrensk. Now based by San Francisco Bay, Saul is an ever-positive influence in the community. Saul himself may not always make it to the gigs, but nevertheless, "it's all good man!"