(New York, NY)—As New York City continues to reopen the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust’s summer season features a new outdoor concert series welcoming audiences back in person.
Music of the Jewish Diaspora, the three-part series to be held in the adjacent Wagner Park, kicks off on Thursday, June 10, at 6:30 PM (ET) with Sharabi featuring Frank London & Deep Singh with Sarah Gordon. Sharabi is a Yiddish-Punjabi bhangra-funk-klezmer party band, fronted by trumpeter Frank London, a founding member of the Grammy-winning group the Klezmatics, and New York’s top-call Indian percussionist, Deep Singh. The concert is co-presented by the Museum, Yiddish New York, and the Center for Traditional Music and Dance.
The series continues on Thursday, June 24, at 6:30 PM (ET) in Wagner Park with The Beary Brothers Featuring Psoy Korolenko, Zisl Slepovitch, and Ilya Shneyveys. The Beary Brothers is a supergroup of three emigre musicians from the former Soviet Union. Psoy Korolenko, one of Russia’s leading contemporary bards, is joined by the spellbinding multi-instrumentalists Zisl Slepovich (Litvakus/Folksbiene) and accordionist Ilya Shneyveys (Forshpil). This eclectic progressive folk trio explores a diverse range of cultures, languages, musical styles from the Renaissance through modernity, and geographies from Andalusia to the Maghreb and the Russian steppe.
The next installment of the Music of the Jewish Diaspora takes place on Sunday, July 11, at 3:30 PM (ET) with The Noga Band Featuring Avram Pengas. New York music legend Avram Pengas is a virtuoso guitarist, bouzouki player, and singer whose music is rooted in the Mediterranean tavernas of Athens. Born into a musical family of Romaniote and Sephardic Jewish-Greek heritage, Pengas was raised in Jaffa. A budding career as a performer in Greek clubs in Israel brought him to New York in 1970 to participate in the legendary scene of Turkish-owned clubs along Eighth Avenue that were the pulse of Hell’s Kitchen from the 1920s to the 1970s. A popular performer in the local Greek and Sephardic/Mizrachi communities, Pengas and his Noga Band cook up a multicultural stew of rhythms and modes spanning Greece, Turkey, Armenia, Israel, and the Levant.
Then in August, the Museum will present Sarah Aroeste with Shai Bachar: Ladino Music from Yesterday to Today, live from the stage in the Museum’s state of the art Edmond J. Safra Hall. International Ladino singer/songwriter Sarah Aroeste draws upon her family roots from Macedonia and Greece as she performs traditional and original Ladino songs in this special multimedia program. Joined on piano by longtime Israeli collaborator Shai Bachar, Aroeste weaves stories from Sephardic history together with song, taking the audience through centuries of rich Sephardic experiences from the Eastern Mediterranean right up to the present.
Tickets to the Music of the Jewish Diaspora series are free with a suggested donation. Limited tickets for in-person attendance to Sarah Aroeste with Shai Bachar: Ladino Music from Yesterday to Today will be available for $20 for the public and $10 for Museum members. Tickets to attend any event virtually are $10 for the public and free for Museum members.
In addition to in-person concerts, the Museum also will present a series of virtual, pop-up concerts, featuring Valeriya Sholokhova, Daniel Kahn and other performers. Stay tuned for more updates on the Museum’s Facebook and Instagram page.
The Museum’s LOX at Café Bergson is also open for brunch, lunch, and dinner, serving its Museum-made smoked salmon and other kosher delicacies. LOX will be open during in-person events and providing menu options at the outdoor concerts.
Even with the return of in-person programming, not everyone may wish or be able to travel or attend. The Museum will continue presenting virtual programming for online audiences. For more information and a full calendar of virtual and in-person events, please visit the Museum’s events page. Select in-person events will also be available online via livestream.
About the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust
The Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust is New York’s contribution to the global responsibility to never forget. The Museum is committed to the crucial mission of educating diverse visitors about Jewish life before, during, and after the Holocaust. The third largest Holocaust museum in the world and the second largest in North America, the Museum of Jewish Heritage anchors the southernmost tip of Manhattan, completing the cultural and educational landscape it shares with the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
The Museum of Jewish Heritage maintains a collection of almost 40,000 artifacts, photographs, documentary films, and survivor testimonies and contains classrooms, a 375-seat theater (Edmond J. Safra Hall), special exhibition galleries, a resource center for educators, and a memorial art installation, Garden of Stones, designed by internationally acclaimed sculptor Andy Goldsworthy. The Museum is the home of National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene.
On view are Ordinary Treasures: Highlights from the Museum of Jewish Heritage Collection and Rendering Witness: Holocaust-Era Art as Testimony.
The Museum receives general operating support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts.