Some of the featured artists at this year's event are: Frank London (USA) who appears in the klezmer opera "The Night in the Old Marketplace" and other projects, Brass All Stars (USA), Anna Maria Jopek & Kroke, Sisters of Sheynville (Canada), Joseph Malovany (USA), accompanied by the Choir of White Stork Synagogue in Wrocław, Ben Zimet (France), Michael Hochman, Karsten Troyke (Germany) & Trio Scho (Ukraine), Lena Ledoff (Russia) with the Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra, the Jewish Theatre of Bucharest, Raphael Rogiński, Lenka Lichtenberg (Canada), Mendy Cahan (Israel), Groove Headz (Austria), Christian David (Germany) and Ran Dank (Israel).
Also performing is the Ger Mandolin Orchestra from San Francisco, which is a memorial project of reviving the Jewish Mandolin Orchestra that was active in Góra Kalwaria, between 1920 to 1930. Most of its members died in the Holocaust.
During the festival the slightly forgotten vicinity of Próżna Street and the Grzybowski Square transforms into a colourful dancing and singing shtetl from the early twentieth century, filled with wineries, bakeries and booths. This year the festival expands to the Praga neighbourhood and the local venues of Skład Butelek bar, Hydrozagadka, Sens Nonsensu, Cztery Pokoje (Four Rooms), but also to less known alleys of the district where various art forms, shows and concerts are presented. Contemporary Jewish music resounds at concerts of the leading avant-garde instrumentalists from both Poland and abroad such Paul Szamburski, Patrick Zakrocki just to name a few.
The Singer's Warsaw (Warszawa Singera) Jewish Culture Festival restores the memory of the pre-war Jewish "Warszawa", praised by Singer in so many of his novels and short stories. Representatives of Jewish culture from all around the world come to Poland's capital for the Festival each year. Here many of them have their roots, this is the place where their parents and grandparents came from. This event aims to restore the pre-war atmosphere of Próżna Street and to show this lost world of the Polish Jews.
The Singer's Warsaw Jewish Culture Festival runs between the 27th of August through the 4th of September 2011.
The Festival is organised by the Shalom Foundation and co-organised by the Ester Rachel Kamińska and Ida Kamińska State Jewish Theatre.
For a full programme: www.festiwalsingera.pl
Source: www.festiwalsingera.pl.