Ilana & Joe have been performing a variety of musical theatre, jazz, & pop tunes at various venues in the NYC, Long Island, & Hudson Valley Region since 2018.  They originally met as performing arts teachers at Great Neck North High School (Joe - Band & Orchestra and Ilana - Theatre), After collaborating on two years worth of music faculty concerts, they decided to continue their act and "take it on the road" with Ilana singing and Joe playing piano & accordion.

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     They have since appeared numerous times at the Copake Grange (Copake, NY), The Stuyvesant Cove Summer Concert Series (NYC), The Starving Artist (City Island, NY), The Tin Pan Alley American Popular Music Project Concert Series, The Hillsdale United Methodist Church (Hillsdale, NY),  The Rogers Memorial Library (Southampton, NY), and more.  They have also continually performed at assisted living centers on Long Island, in Westchester, and the Upper Hudson Valley Region. 

 

     Joe and Ilana have occasionally attended open mics throughout the Hudson Valley region, and have an especially warm place in their hearts for former Club Helsinki's Open Mic Nights in Hudson, NY.  In fact, during the pandemic, they made weekly music videos for the club's virtual open mic nights, and became known as one of the  "Virtual Open Mic Heroes."

 

     For the first few years of performing, Ilana & Joe performed a multitude of tunes, and then started to focus on putting together themed acts.  Since 2023, they have performed "All That 20s" (Music from the 1720, 1820s, 1920s and 2020s), "Tin Pan Alley Cabaret" (American music published on Tin Pan Alley (28th Street in NYC) from the 1880s to the 1930s), and "Songs From the Cinema" (Celebrating music nominated for best song at the Academy Awards).

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     For the past year and a half, they have collaborated with NYC historian, Jim Mackin, on several shows.   The commentary on songs - whether it be about the composition styles, anecdotes on the writers lives, history on the era it was written in, or even a comparison to a modern day phenomenon; creates a beautiful way to delve into the universe of the material being performed​​

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     If interested in having us at your venue, please contact Ilana at ilanameredith@gmail.com  or Joseph Rutkowski at josephrrutkowski@gmail.com

We are happy to do a cabaret act as a duo, or as a trio with historian Jim Mackin.

Pictures and videos from prior performances can be found on the Gallery & Media pages of this website respectively. 

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Bios (Joe & Jim)

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Joe Rutkowski has entertained audiences in the tri-state area for over 50 years.  Performing his first gig on accordion at the age of 10, he has expanded his repertoire of styles to include classical Mozart and Beethoven to jazz classics, and from Polish and Ukrainian dances to bebop jazz and Jewish klezmer.  As a combo player and soloist, Joseph Rutkowski is a 44-year veteran member of Local 802 (American Federation of Musicians). He has performed dozens of jazz programs with his two sons, Ben and Daniel. As a young musician, he performed hundreds of club dates with his brother Andrew and their father, Joe, Sr.  This pattern of a father and two sons goes back 5 generations in Joe’s family to the 1880s in Poland.

 

Jim Mackin is an established historian and author of "Notable New Yorkers of Manhattan’s Upper West Side: Bloomingdale – Morningside Heights". He lectures widely at many venues and conducts historical tours for such institutions as the New York Historical Society. He was the president of the Friends of Taconic State Park which built a railroad that opened in the summer of 2023. He is currently a co-director of his local Bloomingdale Neighborhood History group on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Playing guitar and singing only begin to suggest his interest in popular music and its rich history.

   

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