Zoë Aqua

Zoë Aqua was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. She played Suzuki violin while her dad led songs at their local synagogue and played klezmer music on the weekends. After college, Aqua lived in Brooklyn for a decade amidst a generous and progressive Jewish community that stoked her love of old klezmer recordings and her fascination with Eastern European music. She co-founded two klezmer bands, Tsibele and Farnakht, and was the full-time understudy for the Klezmatics’ Lisa Gutkin in the Broadway production of “Indecent.” Zoë holds a BM in Violin Performance and Music Education from the University of Michigan, and an MM in Music Education from Ithaca College. From 2021-2023, Aqua lived in Romania doing ethnographic research on a Fulbright fellowship to study Transylvanian folk music. She has performed at Philadelphia Folk Festival, Klezkanada Festival, Yiddish New York Festival and has toured in Germany, Austria, France, Hungary, Romania, and Turkey.