About
Tsvey Brider (meaning “two brothers” in Yiddish) is a Yiddish songwriting, arranging and performing duo. Formed in 2017 after winning the Concurso Internacional de Canciones en Idish (Der Idisher Idol) in Mexico City, Tsvey Brider has gone on to be featured in the Gorki Theatre’s Radikale Jüdisches Kulturtage (Radical Jewish Culture Festival), tour across Poland and perform for culture and music festivals both nationally and internationally.
Inspired by the work of an international group of twentieth century Jewish writers and poets, Tsvey Brider is an outfit for the musical exploration of contemporary life in the Yiddish language. This has led the duo to write, arrange and perform in a diverse array of styles and genres including contemporary classical, cabaret, blues and pop in addition to the sounds of Jewish Eastern Europe that have traditionally accompanied music in the Yiddish language.
In 2022, Tsvey Brider released Kosmopolitn, its debut full-length album. The record sets fifteen original compositions to Yiddish poetry from the first half of the twentieth century, accompanied by klezmer band Baymele and featuring guest appearances by Veretski Pass, Kurt Bjorling, Joshua Horowitz, and others.
In January 2024, Tsvey Brider undertook its most ambitious project to date: two performances with the Louisville Orchestra (Louisville, KY), alongside klezmer musicians David Krakauer and Josh Dolgin, funk legend Fred Wesley, and the St. Stephen Baptist Church Choir. The program explored the intersections of Jewish and African American musical traditions.
The members of Tsvey Brider (Anthony Russell and Dmitri Gaskin) have performed and recorded with such noted artists as Anthony Coleman, Daniel Kahn, Josh Dolgin/SoCalled, Michael Winograd, Sarah Aroeste, Michael Alpert, Alan Bern, Yale Strom and Veretski Pass.
Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell
Anthony Russell is a vocalist, composer and arranger specializing in music in the Yiddish language. His solo work in Jewish music has brought him to stages in Toronto, Montreal, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, London and Tel Aviv, Symphony Space in New York City, the Kennedy Center in Washington DC and Limmud Fests across the United States and Europe.
His work in traditional Ashkenazi Jewish musical forms led to a musical exploration of his own ethnic roots through the research, arrangement and performance of a hundred years of African American roots music, resulting in the EP Convergence (2018), a collaboration with klezmer consort Veretski Pass exploring the sounds and themes of one hundred years of African American and Ashkenazi Jewish music.
An essayist in a number of publications including Jewish Currents and Moment Magazine, Anthony lives in San Diego, CA with his husband of seven years, Rabbi Michael Rothbaum.
Dmitri Gaskin
Dmitri Gaskin is an accordion and piano player, composer, and arranger specializing in klezmer as well as Polish and Romanian folk music. He performs regularly with Baymele and Tsvey Brider, and has shared the stage with the Louisville Orchestra, David Krakauer, Socalled (Josh Dolgin), Kurt Bjorling, and Veretski Pass, among others. In 2025, with Baymele, he released the instrumental album Sapling. Dmitri was the accordionist and music director for the 2022 production of Indecent at the San Francisco Playhouse. He serves as board chair of KlezCalifornia and festival director of the KlezCalYidFest. Dmitri studied accordion with Josh Horowitz and Alan Bern.