28th Annual Jewish Music Festival in Berkeley and SF, March 2-12 March 2, 2013

Folk music, jazz and contemporary classical music drawing attention to a thousand years of Jewish life and legacy in Poland will be the focus of the 28th Jewish Music Festival, scheduled March 2-12 in Berkeley and San Francisco. Festival Director Eleanor Shapiro has announced an impressive array of artists including Theodore Bikel, David Krakauer, Matt Haimowitz, European Yiddish diva Shura Lipovsky, the world premiere of Bay Area composer David Garner's Vilna Poems, the West Coast debuts of the Polish ensembles Shofar and Polesye, and more in nine performances.

Award-winning journalist and author of "Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish Culture in Europe" Ruth Ellen Gruber will open the festival with a pre-concert slide presentation at 7 p.m. on March 2. The Festival Opening Night concert follows at 8 pm, presenting the original sounds of Polish musicians making their West Coast debuts. Polesye, a joint Polish-Israeli CD project, features Olga Mieleszczuk, a young vocalist who often brings Jewish music to small Polish towns that last heard these sounds before World War II. Shofar, a trio of vanguard Polish jazz instrumentalists, will present its exquisitely original improvisations inspired by the Eastern European Jewish folk music known as klezmer.

Official Website: http://www.jewishmusicfestival.org