Polina Shepherd (RU/GB; voice, composition/arranging, choir conducting)

was born in a Russian Jewish family in Novosibirsk. While living in Tatarstan, Central Russia, in the 1980-1990s, she was one of the visible young Jewish activists during her student years, just as the Jews of the Soviet Union began to turn their focus back to their roots. By helping her father to bring a Jewish community together in the industrial town of Naberezhnye Chelny, recording the remaining memories of Yiddish songs from locals, performing, and forming her own band, she learned about being Jewish in Russia. At the age of 17, she joined Russia′s first professional klezmer band after perestroika, Simcha, with whom she toured the former Soviet Union, while also studying her musical heritage further.

By her early 20s, she was a Yiddish choir leader, composer, bandleader, singer, an international touring musician, educator, and festival organiser. Having witnessed the phoenix of Jewish culture rising from the ashes of communism and helped it flourish and develop throughout the FSU, she is now part of the international world of Ashkenazi culture.

Now living in the UK, she continues to be an international culture makher committed to opening this culture and connecting it to the rest of the global village. She taught the Caravan Choir in 2021 and has been the artistic director of Caravan Orchestra & Choir since 2022.

>> www.polinashepherd.co.uk

Photo: Shendl Copitman