Susan Watts represents the youngest generation of an important klezmer dynasty that reaches back to the Jewish Ukraine of the 19th century, beginning with her great-grandfather: bandleader, composer, and cornet-player, Joseph Hoffman. Hoffman’s handwritten music books contain his own arrangements of horas, Russian shers, polkas, mazurkas, Russian kamaratskies and kazatskies, a czardas, waltzes, freilachs, bulgars, and many other tunes named after the very Russian and Polish towns with which the music was associated. The Hoffman family played for generations of Philadelphia-area Jewish weddings and parties, and their music became part of a distinctly Philadelphia klezmer repertoire. Susan is the sole living purveyor of the family’s traditional klezmer-style trumpet sounds, which electrified Jewish American audiences for decades. In addition to playing with a variety of noted klezmer musicians from around the world, Watts has recorded and performed with Hankus Netsky, Mikveh and London’s Klezmer All-Star Brass Band.
