Daniel Kahn, a Detroit native and Jewish-American composer, musician and actor living in Berlin, plays a central role in the international klezmer scene. He studied acting, directing and playwriting at the University of Michigan, worked as a bar pianist, led punk street parades in New Orleans and staged Brecht and others at various American stages.
In Berlin, he founded The Painted Bird, in which musicians from New York and Berlin come together to produce alienation klezmer – an inauthentic brew with radical lyrics that also goes by the name Yiddish Punk Cabaret.

Daniel Kahn plays a wide range of instruments and genres. He has worked several times with Michael Ronen and in connection with the Conflict Zone Arts Asylum. At Ballhaus Naunynstraße, he provided the music for Die lange Nacht des gebrauchten Juden (January 2010), an ensemble reading of Maxim Biller’s autobiographical novel.