D. Zisl Slepovitch is a native of Minsk, Belarus, who has lived in New York since 2008. He holds a doctorate in musicology from the Belarusian State Academy of Music and is a multi-instrumentalist, playing klezmer, classical, and improvisational music on woodwinds and keyboards. Slepovitch is also a composer, arranger, conductor, and a music and Yiddish educator.
He is a founding member of the critically acclaimed klezmer collective Litvakus and the Zisl Slepovitch Ensemble, and a regular contributor to productions by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene. Slepovitch serves as the musician-in-residence at Yale University’s Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, where he has produced three critically acclaimed albums, along with video and concert series.
His credits include the movie “Defiance,” the album “Eternal Echoes” (Sony Classical), “Rejoice” with Itzhak Perlman and Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot (PBS), and “Fiddler on the Roof” in Yiddish (off-Broadway). In 2022, Slepovitch began performing at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, first as a woodwind player, and later as a pianist.