Don Kipper

Don Kipper are a multi award-winning 7-piece ensemble playing a wide range of traditional musical forms reflecting the cultural diversity of North East London, from Turkish and Greek Folk Musics to Romani music and Klezmer. While we attempt to root ourselves deeply in the traditions that surround us, we also like to bring these musical cultures together in innovative, exciting, and unusual ways that mirror London’s vibrant, cosmopolitan energy. We're equally happy taking an intimate audience on a musical journey through Europe as we are taking their feet on a frantic journey around the dancefloor, at home both on large outdoor stages playing to a crowd of ecstatic dancers, and in sweaty tents getting the throng jumping.

Since 2013, we have released our First and Second albums, been featured on BBC Introducing and the BBC World Service, played two European Tours, and won the titles of both the Moshe Beregovski Award for best Klezmer Newcomers and World Music Network’s Battle of the Bands. If you like the Amsterdam Klezmer Band, Taraf De Haïdouks, or Balkan Beat Box you’ll love Don Kipper!

“Sure to send shivers down your spine”
Songlines

“So tight it sounds like one divine entity is playing the band”
Max Reinhardt, Late Junction - BBC Radio 3

“Unbridled musical passion & virtuosic mastery”
DJ Ritu, A World in London - Resonance FM

"The true sound of our capital"
WOMAD 2017

Within the ensemble we have a diversity of musical roots and routes. From childhood obsessions with Klezmer, to song collecting around the Mediterranean, wild Scottish Ceilidhs, grooving Senegalese Mbalax, the propulsive beat of the Samba bateria, and late night Jazz jam sessions in Dalston, we bring our potted histories and inquisitive minds to the traditional music of Southern and Eastern Europe that we love, study and perform. Some of us are conservatoire trained, while others play entirely by ear, or learnt their songs from Greek grandmothers. Regardless, we seek to make imaginative music within these living traditions that reflect the lives and loves of people who have lived in this patch of London we call home for more than a century.

Together we'll make your brain think and your feet dance!