St. Pölten Illuminates Jewish Culture

ORF, June 5, 2024

German original: https://noe.orf.at/stories/3259982/

The "Jewish Weekends" will present a broad spectrum of Jewish culture away from clichés on the weekends of June 7-9 and June 14-16. The festival will take place at the former synagogue in St. Pölten, the Bühne im Hof and the Festspielhaus.

At the "Jewish Weekends," Austrian premieres of international ensembles will meet programs that local artists have designed especially for the festival, according to a press release. The programs range from Jewish Renaissance and Baroque music to classical music, singer-songwriters, jazz and avant-garde.

The first weekend is themed "Between Ghetto, Emancipation and the Eternal." In addition to the opening concert "From Romanticism to Broadway" with Sharon Kam on clarinet and Matan Porat on piano, visitors can also look forward to the Klezmer trio Kroke with "From Kazimierz to the World" and the world premiere of "Encounters with Splendor. A Journey through the Hebrew Alphabet" with the Michel Godard Quartet featuring Nataša Mirković.

"Being Jewish. Of Complex Identities" is the theme of the second weekend: historian Benjamin Grilj will talk about "Odessa's Jewish History. The Turbulent 20th Century." The Andrej Prozorov Trio will musically recall this period with "Am Schwarzen Meer" and Dan Rosenberg will talk about the creation of "Shoah and Survival in Poland. The 'Silent Tears' Project," while "Silent Tears. The Last Yiddish Tango" with Olga Mieleszczuk, Lenka Lichtenberg, Dan Rosenberg and the Payadora Ensemble will see an Austrian premiere.