Saturday: 2 p.m. Heritage, 8:30 p.m. Railroad; Sunday: 2:30 p.m. Railroad, 5:15 p.m. Heritage

The Klezmatics play the soul-stirring Jewish roots music known as klezmer. One of the seminal groups in the klezmer revival, the group was founded in New York City’s East Village in 1986. Its brand of klezmer has celebrated the ecstatic nature of Yiddish music with works that are by turns wild, spiritual, provocative, reflective and danceable.

Klezmer is the celebratory music created by Yiddish-speaking Jews in Eastern Europe. It is a traditional form of Eastern European Jewish dance music with roots that predate the Middle Ages. Incorporating fragments of cantorial melody, snippets of ancient folk tunes, bits of Yiddish poetry, Hebraic ritual, and Greek and Ottoman influences, klezmer became the predominant social and celebratory music of Eastern Europe’s Jewish community from about 1880.

The music came to the United States with the wave of Jewish immigration at the turn of the last century. Since then, it has been mixed with American jazz and popular music and continues to evolve. Its revival began in established communities in American cities in the 1960s and ’70s. Characterized by wailing clarinets and exhilarating dance rhythms, klezmer’s popularity continues to grow thanks to a new generation of master musicians.

The vitality and joy of the Klezmatics’ music have uplifted audiences around the world since the group’s inception. The band has reached millions of television viewers on PBS’ “Great Performances” (with violinist Itzhak Perlman). It has recorded sessions for National Public Radio’s “New Sounds Live,” “Soundcheck” and “A Prairie Home Companion.” In the summer of 2001, the band appeared in concert on the site of Berlin’s historic New Synagogue. The resulting television program, “Voices: A Musical Celebration,” aired nationally over PBS, across Europe and in Israel.

Klezmatics founding singer Lorin Sklamberg’s work as vocalist and accordionist can be heard on more than three dozen recordings, including “Songs Are All I Have: The Musical Legacy of Vladimir Heifitz” (YIVO); “Remember the Children” (U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum); and “Live in the Fiddler’s House” (EMI), on which he duets on his original tune “Nign” with violinist Perlman. Sklamberg serves now as the sound archivist of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

Multi-instrumentalist and composer Matt Darriau plays reed instruments and flutes. In addition to his work with the Klezmatics, he leads his own Balkan rhythm quartet, the Paradox Trio. Recent projects have included a U.S. tour with the five-piece Recycled Waltz Orchestra playing the film music of Bernard Herr-

mann. His newest project (along with fellow Klezmatic Frank London) is the septet Ballin’ the Jack, which plays early swing fused with contemporary improvisation.

Trumpeter-composer London, a member of the “Hasidic New Wave,” has performed with LL Cool J, Mel Torme, Lester Bowie, They Might Be Giants and David Byrne and is featured on more than 100 recordings. His own releases include “Invocations” (cantorial music), Frank London’s Klezmer Brass Allstars’ “Di Shikere Kapelye” and “Brotherhood of Brass.” He has been featured on HBO’s “Sex and the City,” at the North Sea Jazz Festival and the Lincoln Center Summer Festival and was a co-founder of Les Miserables Brass Band and the Klezmer Conservatory Band.

Fiddler and composer Lisa Gutkin is one of New York City’s busiest musicians. Her unique synthesis of Irish and Scottish traditions and a varied ethnic musical palette led to the formation of the acoustic Celtic-world-jazz-fusion band Whirligig. Having appeared on more than 100 recordings, Gutkin also composes and performs for film, radio, television and theater and has toured extensively throughout the United States, Europe and Japan. She now performs with Whirligig, the newly formed An Cr, and in solo and duo concerts with Brendan Dolan.

David Licht (drums) was born in Detroit and grew up in Greensboro, N.C., where he played many styles of music, including jazz, blues, folk, rock, Brazilian and African. Moving to New York City in 1985, Licht quickly became part of the second wave of the klezmer revival, listening and learning from vintage 78 rpm recordings, which continue to be his biggest influence. He was the manager of the recording studio Noise NY, recorded and toured with the legendary band Bongwater, and composed and performed music for modern dance. He appears on more than 30 recordings on the Shimmy Disc label. He has performed and recorded with Klezmer stars Andy Statman, David Krakauer, Michael Alpert, Pete Sokolow and Klezmer Plus.

Paul Morrissett (bass and tsimbl) is a collector and accomplished player of traditional folk instruments of the Balkans and Scandinavia. He has traveled the world studying with ethnic masters such as Norway’s Hauk Buen and Alf Tveit and Bulgaria’s Kostadin Varimezov, Misho Marinov and Atanas Vulchev. Morrissett has recorded and performed in venues from Lincoln Center to Zagreb, on instruments including kaval, bass, zurla, violin, trumpet, accordion and tamburitza. He conducts workshops at festivals and has been on the staff of Lark in the Morning, Buffalo on the Roof, and the Balkan Music and Dance camps.