“I’m going to rap now, and it’s going to be rude, so I’m sorry,” Josh Dolgin sheepishly warned the audience at a Carnegie Hall education 2002 workshop, before delivering a dazzling performance that would ultimately land him a regular spot in David Krakauer’s Klezmer Madness! ensemble. Clarinetist David Krakauer met Dolgin, better known as DJ Socalled, at that workshop—a workshop much like the one being offered from April 8 to 13 at Carnegie Hall.

As part of The Weill Music Institute’s Professional Training Workshop series, Krakauer and partners in crime Socalled (laptop), Alicia Svigals (violin), and Michael Alpert (voice, percussion, accordion, and guitar) will guide young musicians through the repertoire and technique associated with modern klezmer music, focusing on pieces ranging from Osvaldo Golijov’s Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind to David Schiff’s Gimpel the Fool. A highlight of the workshop is a performance on April 13 featuring both up-and-coming klezmer wizzes and the workshop leaders. Exploring several traditional pieces through nontraditional instrumentations, the musicians will survey and expand the current klezmer landscape, and concertgoers will get a revealing glimpse at a musical genre that in the past 20 years has experienced a revival, becoming an important source for musical experimentation.

Krakauer himself has been at the forefront of that revival, rekindling an interest in the klezmer tradition through thoughtful dialogue between traditional and experimental. He has made his career both as performer and recording artist by bridging musical worlds that would otherwise not be in touch. Also a consummate classical musician, Krakauer has performed at a variety of festivals and venues—including the Venice Biennale, the Library of Congress, and Joe’s Pub in New York—that reflect the diversity of musical styles he brings to bear on his own music.

“For me,” Krakauer says, “it is important to do two things in playing klezmer. One is to preserve the Jewishness … the melodic shapes, the ornaments, the phrasing, the traditional repertoire, and the flavor of the cantor. But the second is to keep klezmer out of the museum—to write new klezmer pieces and to improvise on older forms in a way that is informed by the world around me today.” The workshop and performance promise to do just this, retaining the history of klezmer while creating it anew.