For the members of the Chicago Klezmer Ensemble, klezmer music possesses a unique language to be discovered, developed and extended, a process facilitated by the large archive of vintage klezmer recordings collected, restored and reproduced by Kurt Bjorling. The challenge is to create a balance between past and future. The Chicago Klezmer Ensemble meets this task through their remarkable ability to draw out and amplify the unique characteristics from the core of the klezmer repertoire - - - an ability which enables them both to perform the music in an authentic manner and to extend the style through new ideas and original compositions.

Walter Zev Feldman, one of the first musicians and scholars of the klezmer revival, offered high praise to the Chicago Klezmer Ensemble on their first recording in 1989:

". . . You have done something wonderful and deserve to be congratulated. This tape is at once the most authentic and the most exciting Jewish instrumental music in the country today. I think now that you see the great challenge in performing the authentic music in a manner which is both true to the sources and attempts to bring out all the musical potential in the genre."