Polina Shepherd was born in Siberia and grew up in a Russian-Jewish home where songs were regularly sung at the table. She studied at the State Academy of her home town Kazan and became the principal Yiddish choir leader of the Soviet Union, composing original material for large groups of voices and touring internationally with her Quartet Ashkenazim. Growing up in Tatarstan placed her close to Islamic ornamentation and timbre which can be heard in her unique vocal style and four octave range. Touring with Simkha, the first Klezmer band since Perestroika, she sang in Soviet theatres, to Boris Yeltsin and to the World. Her Russian choral repertoire covers Russian classics and folklore. Together with clarinetist Merlin Shepherd she is a member of Duo Plus that performs Klezmer, Turkish, Russian, Greek, and Romanian Music and performs the world over.
