TORONTO — For 20 years, the Flying Bulgars have been melding Yiddish tradition with jazz improvisation, all the while growing and changing musically.

The Flying Bulgars perform at the Ashkenaz Festival on Aug 30. From left are Tania Gill, Peter Lutek, Max Senitt, David Buchbinder, Dave Wall and Victor Bateman. 

Performing at this year’s Ashkenaz Festival, the band is pioneering another innovation – they’ve added English vocals to the mix.  

“After 20 years of loving and playing Yiddish music and doing songs in Yiddish, we wanted to see what happened if we opened ourselves up to English,” said trumpeter, composer and band founder David Buchbinder.

“It’s not that we’re tired of Yiddish, but we had stuff we wanted to express, we had songs waiting to be written. We wanted to reach a wide range of people.”

The Flying Bulgars, which is co-led by Buchbinder and vocalist Dave Wall, has played an important role in the revival of klezmer music. After years of instrumentals, the band’s new album, which will be out by the end of the year, concentrates more on vocals and lyrics.

“Most of the songs are now actually songs,” Buchbinder said. “All these years of being instrumental, I’m excited to be involved in something that will reach people directly, hopefully deeply. For most people, having poetry and music together makes it much more personal. It allows them to bring music into their own lives.”  

Another first for the band is the amount of collaboration between Wall and Buchbinder. What came out of this collaboration was a contemporary folk/alternative style with a bittersweet mix of darkness and light.

“There’s one song which is a satirical look at the issue of folk music as a consumer item. There are songs that are informed by the situation in the Middle East,” he said.

Before beginning to compose, both Buchbinder and Wall sat down and wrote short stories.

“The songs aren’t random, they came out of a creative process. We wrote some stories just to give us something to start writing from. It gave us a lot of images,” Buchbinder said, adding that the stories were rooted in Judaism. “It’s a Jewish band so that was the way our minds went.”

Buchbinder, one of the founders of the Ashkenaz festival, admits that his music may be going in a more modern direction, although the instrumentals are still rooted in the past.

“The instrumentals may have gotten a little more traditionally inspired. It used to be a lot more extreme jazz experimentation, but personally, I don’t need to do that in the band anymore.”

Eric Stein, the festival’s artistic director, said that he’s seeing a contemporary move in the klezmer music scene.

“I know that [Buchbinder’s] goal has been to try to take it in a more contemporary kind of direction. A lot of people are doing that, a number of artists in the klezmer music scene are making music out of English lyrics. It says more about contemporary impulses by a number of musicians working in this world to make it accessible,” Stein said.

This year, the festival will offer several acts that appeal to a younger generation.

“I’ve put a slightly stronger emphasis on putting in more programming for kids and families. We realize that the future of this thing really depends on the next generation,” Stein said.

Some of this programming includes Nayekhovichi, a hard-rock klezmer group from Russia, and Abraham Inc., a Jewish funk band.

Buchbinder believes that the Flying Bulgars’ new songs will appeal to younger audiences.

“For people who have never heard of the band, especially younger people, there’s a lot of stuff they can get into and appreciate,” he said. “I think the music is compelling. The songs are really interesting, they’re very accessible and engaging and they’ve got some edge to them.”

Like all of the Flying Bulgars’ music, the new songs are rooted in Jewish traditions.

“Anybody coming [to the festival] to hear some Jewish music will not be disappointed. In the middle of a Yiddish festival, I’m very proud of these tunes. I like the stuff we’ve come up with,” Buchbinder said, adding that the festival is perfect for connecting with Jewish culture.

“The festival as a whole is the best place to check in, spend all weekend and soak it in. I see there are a lot of great artists. It’s a great chance to immerse [in Yiddish culture.]”

The Flying Bulgars perform at the Ashkenaz Festival on Aug. 30 at 7 p.m, and the show is free. For more information, visit www.harbourfrontcentre.com.