to the family canon.

Watts and her family, most notably her
mother, have been featured in several
televised documentaries. Before she died
in 2017, Elaine Hoff man Watts was a klezmer
drummer in the Philadelphia-based group,
The Fabulous Shpielkehs. Watts often
performed with her mother on stage. The
fi lm “Eatala: A Life in Klezmer” shares the
Ukrainian-Jewish klezmer sounds of mother
and daughter.

“When I was a little girl, you couldn’t get
out of my house without being a musician in
some way, shape or form,” Watts said. “My
mother was a musician, and her whole life
was dedicated and devoted to music and
raising a musician.” Watts has two musically
inclined siblings.

On June 4, Watts launches “The Hoff man
Book,” a collection of her great-grandfa-
ther’s music. Some are originals, and some
are common tunes of the day.

“He wrote this book in 1927 for his children
who were musicians,” Watts says.

On a Zoom call, players from all over
the world will perform a selection from the
book, she said.

Watts, 56, of Ardmore, has had plenty of
musical opportunities in the past several
years, from performing at concerts with noted
klezmer musicians from around the world to
receiving grants and awards from the Pew
Foundation and the Leeway Foundation.

She also was awarded a National Heritage
Fellowship from the National Endowment
for the Arts and two Leeway Foundation
Grants. She produced “Soul Songs: Inspiring
Women of Klezmer.” The project brings
together 12 of the top Klezmer instrumen-
talists in North America to perform new and
modern klezmer compositions all penned
by women.

Watts began an organization called the
Community Klezmer Initiative that off ers
cultural programs. “We’ve had really
awesome programming — jams, dances, a
Yiddish cabaret — really nice get-togethers
around Yiddish culture and music. We want
people to laugh and have fun and learn and
enjoy themselves and other people.”
First and foremost, “klezmer is great
music,” Watts said. “It connects to our yichus
(Yiddish for lineage). We feel a connection
to the people that have come before us. It’s
a connector and an enlivener.”
She is a trumpet player, and what she
loves about the instrument is its spirituality.

“It happened the fi rst time I picked it up.

I was 8 years old. My father played the
trumpet in high school and he kept his
trumpet in the closet. When I was a little
Susan Watts
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