Leo Chelyapov's Home Page
"using a colorful catalog of trills, note smears, glissandos, laughing sounds and gurgles, he transformed every solo into a high flying musical excursion - doing so, at one point, while walking through the capacity crowd in Kenny G's best reach-out-and-touch-your-listeners fashion." - (Los Angeles Times, Tuesday, May 7, 2002) "...an irrepressible force...a master of the subtle ornamentation of the klezmer style, he [Chelyapov] trimmed his lines with the musical sobs, sudden bits of clarinet laughter and quick grace notes that make the music such a free-ranging, passionate form of expression." -Don Heckman (Los Angeles Times, Dec. 28th, 2000)
"The outstanding Russian clarinetist Leo Chelyapov... added authenticity to the Klezmer numbers." (International Musician newspaper)
"...The most organized passages, in fact, were a few klezmer numbers featuring the gifted Russian clarinetist Leo Chelyapov whose strong soloing and effective leadership qualities brought some sense of musical order to the proceedings. It wasn't surprising that the packed-house audience cheered each of his upfront appearances." -Don Heckman (Los Angeles Times, Monday, Jan. 8th, 2001)
Virtuoso clarinetist LEO CHELYAPOV is the Klezmer sensation from Russia. He graduated from the Moscow College of Musical Arts and emigrated to Hollywood in 1992. Since that time he has taken America by storm with his infusion of pure, traditional Jewish folk music into the fabric of American popular culture. Chelyapov performed on the soundtrack for the Howard Stern film "Private Parts," and with the popular rock bands Porno for Pyros and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. He has also been featured on Late Night with David Letterman, MTV, and at Madison Square Garden . Leo Chelyapov is also an accomplished composer and arranger. He was commissioned to arrange a work entitled "Klezmer Dances" for the world famous Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. They have recorded this work with Chelyapov on the Sony Classical recording label and are performing it in concerts around the world. The CD was released in 1998. He also recorded with a well-known group Hollywood Klezmer on their highly acclaimed two CDs. Chelyapov's other performances include a series of five concerts at the University of Judaism with jazz luminaries Buddy Collette, Abe Most, Herb Jeffries and Bobby Rodriguez. In 2002 Leo performed at the Playboy Jazz Festival in Beverly Hills with his Hollywood Klezmer Jazz Quintet. In the summer 2004, at Ford Amphitheatre, Leo Chelyapov performed a world premiere of a brand new Clarinet Concerto with Los Angeles Jewish Symphony (conductor Noreen Green). The Concerto was written for Leo by American composer David Stern. Yale Strom interviewed Leo Chelyapov for the recently published Book of Klezmer.