Oran Etkin at Amp By Strathmore

About

Acclaimed clarinetist Oran Etkin’s latest project is a personal homage to the Benny Goodman quartet, the first interracial popular music band in America. Etkin sees the swing era, which Goodman helped usher in, as an awakening of a nation in the turmoil of the Great Depression. “Goodman and his band brought swinging rhythms of black America, the soulful cry of the blues, and the wailing moan of the Jewish prayer into American homes, igniting a movement of positivity through music and dance that carried the country through a dark social and economic period, creating a light that spread throughout the world,” says Etkin.