Inna Barmash

Inna Barmash immigrated to the United States from Vilnius, Lithuania, where she first started singing in Yiddish in a children's song and dance collective. While a student at Princeton University, she co-founded the Klez Dispensers, the university's first klezmer band and has since performed with numerous other klezmer and folk groups in the tri-state area. Her explorations of the repertoire of Russian and Romanian gypsies led to her co-founding of Romashka, a gypsy band based in New York. While roaming through clubs, cafe, and underground parties with Romashka, Inna encountered the composer/violist Ljova Zhurbin, her now-husband and collaborator, with whom she started Ljova & the Kontraband, an original chamber folk ensemble and a duo lovingly dubbed BarmaLjova.