Tomi Kalinski Born in post - W.W.2 Melbourne to recently arrived Polish - Jewish refugees, I was lucky to grow up steeped in Yiddish and music, the first two of my five - plus languages and my favourites to this day.
Whilst many of my creative endeavours, over the years, have brought me to other arenas, my Jewish soul - my Yiddishe neshome - has always energised every effort.
Other arenas include being a founding member of fabled Melbourne cabaret group “The Hot Bagels”, a six - year stint as Barry Humphries' touring 'Red - Sea - Pedestrian' Music Director and actor, Theodor Bikel's Australian accompanist, nomination for a Green Room award for my role as Aphrodite in the co- written “Ginger” at the Malthouse with Evelyn Krape, co - writer of “Ek Velt” , a bilingual history of the Australian Yiddish Theatre, also with Evelyn Krape and Elisa Gray, performed at the Montreal International Yiddish Theatre Festival and at the inaugural New York Festival of the Jewish Performing Arts.
I was a touring member of the Melbourne supergroup “YID!”, invited to perform twice at Womadelaide and at Toronto's Ashkenaz Festival.
I have been creative coordinator of Melbourne's “Mir Kumen On” Yiddish Choir for the past sixteen years. I continue to perform, accompany, teach adult Yiddish classes, to compose music to Yiddish poetry, at Melbourne's unique, trilingual primary school, Sholem Aleichem College. I have also been awarded lifelong honorary membership of the Kadimah Jewish Cultural Centre.
I am looking forward to the fruition of the “Borukh Kaluszyner Project” in late 2024, a collaboration with my good friend Freydi Mrocki; and to seeing my play, “La Dorada", written during Melbourne's notoriously long Covid lockdowns, finally performed under the auspices of the Kadimah Yiddish Theatre, in 2025.
