Ashkenaz Festival: Beyond the Pale

For over 25 years Toronto’s Beyond the Pale has been making its distinctive brand of boundary-busting Eurofolk fusion. Inspired by Klezmer and Balkan styles but influenced by everything from jazz and classical music to bluegrass, newgrass and reggae, Beyond the Pale’s music encompasses a vast musical landscape, bound by no particular idiom and shaped by many. Their stellar musicianship, meticulous dynamics, adventurous compositions, and inventive arrangements of traditional material make them one of Canada’s most innovative acoustic ensembles. Throughout their career, Beyond the Pale has received wide critical acclaim and a number of honours for their recorded work on the Borealis Records label. They are three-time Canadian Folk Music Award winners (7x nominees) and have performed across Canada, the U.S., Europe, Australia and Brazil. Beyond the Pale features Aleksandar Gajic (violin), Bret Higgins (bass), Milos Popovic (accordion), Eric Stein (mandolin), and Martin van de Ven (clarinets).