Lubliner Festival – 3. Jewish Culture Festival in Lublin
August 9th – 14th, 2022
You are cordially invited to the Lubliner Festival – Jewish Culture Festival, a grand celebration of music that will once again be present in the cultural and social space of historic Lublin.
Our Festival combines tradition with modern means of expression. For the third time already, the Festival opens a window to the not-so-distant Jewish past of the city, allowing its inhabitants and visitors to immerse themselves in it, even for just a moment, and bringing them into contact with the culture and tradition of their former neighbors and friends. The event will fill the cultural void left by the no longer existing Jewish quarter.
The aim of this project is to maintain the memory of the history and culture of Jews in Poland and cultivate the Yiddish language but also strengthen the positive Polish-Jewish relations.
The focal point of the Lubliner Festival is the music that connects generations and teaches about Jewish customs and traditions. These sounds, whether flowing from a sobbing Ashkenazi violin or trembling between the strings of a mystical Sephardic oud, not only bring people closer together but also, as the Hasidim claim, are a ticket to paradise. That is why the program of this year’s Festival includes klezmer music and ethno music, as well as jazz, tango, and Hasidic music. We have invited artists who grew up in the Jewish culture and have been drawing from it for a long time, as well as those who have just recently become inspired by it after many years of musical activity.
This year the stages of the Festival will feature artists such as Anna Dereszowska, Ania Karwan, Magdalena and Mirosław Czyżykiewicz, Symcha Keller, Monika Chrząstowska, Kaja Mianowana, Lala Czaplicka, and Kuba Badach, as well as musical groups: Shofar (Mikołaj Trzaska / Raphael Rogiński / Paweł Szpura ), Klezmafour, Propabanda, Berberys, Gang Tango, and a string quartet under the direction of Sebastian Wypych.
For the special occasion of the 30th anniversary of the partnership between Lublin and the Israeli town of Rishon LeZion, the first day of the festival will be fully devoted to Israel. And so, on Tuesday, August 9th, you will be able to hear Olga Mieleszczuk who is coming from Israel especially for the Lublin audience and who will officially open the III Lubliner Festival with her recital “From Rishon LeZion to Lublin.”
A little earlier, all hummus lovers might gladly accept an invitation to Israeli cuisine workshops led by Malka Kafka – the owner of the Tel Aviv restaurant chain in Warsaw.
Together with the Embassy of Israel, we also invite you to visit the exhibition “Israel: Heritage of Innovation,” coming to Lublin for the very first time.
For our youngest audience, we have prepared art workshops with Hanna Kosowska and, if someone likes to move, they should definitely come to the “Move on Together Israeli Way,” movement and dance workshops inspired by the Israeli movement techniques.
The Lubliner Festival will also be graced by the presence of Michael Schudrich, the Chief Rabbi of Poland, who will answer the question: “Is Israel important to Jews?” and all other questions the audience comes up with.
This year’s edition would not be complete without exhibitions and recitals, as well as numerous educational events. During the six festival days there will be, i.a., Israeli dance workshops, klezmer and art workshops, and a self-defense course for women, greatly popular last year.
Those that like to party until dawn are invited to the “Balkan-Klezmer Lubliner Dance Night,” where they can dance the night away to the music of the Propabanda band.
The streets of Lublin will be swept off their feet by a couple of tango champions – Anna Iberszer and Piotr Woźniak – who will gladly draw the audience into a joint milonga.
During this year’s Festival, we could not remain silent about the events taking place just beyond our eastern border. We will express our unbending solidarity with the Ukrainian nation with the concert “Oj letily dyki gusy,” performed by Roxana Vikaluk at the Lublin Philharmonic!
We also wholeheartedly invite you to the premiere concert of an artist associated with Lublin, Symcha Keller, who will present the material from his new album ‘Chasydzka droga. Z Lublina do Kocka’ (Hasidic way. From Lublin to Kock) at the Lublin Philharmonic.
The program of this year’s Festival includes walks around the old Jewish cemetery, excursions in a melex for the senior participants, and also visits to the State Museum at Majdanek and the former Academy of Sages of Lublin – Yeshiva Chachmei Lublin
The final concert of the III Lubliner Festival will be “Tango of my fantasies and dreams”. During this musical feast you will be able to hear Anna Dereszowska, Ania Karwan, Monika Chrząstowska, Kaja Mianowana, Lala Czaplicka, and Kuba Badach. They will be joined on stage by dance masters known from the television screens, Anna Głogowska and Rafał Maserak, as well as Anna Iberszer and Piotr Woźniak. The Gang Tango and the string quartet under the direction of Sebastian Wypych will take us on a journey through the musical nooks and crannies of pre-war melodies.
Etel Szyc, the director and initiator of the Festival, emphasizes: “It’s a great honor for me to be able to organize a festival for the city with over 700 years of history, shared by Poles and Jews. For the city with great traditions, where the Jewish and Polish cultures constantly intertwine and draw from each other, fascinating and inspiring the next generations of its inhabitants. The Lubliner Festival has been created out of love for my hometown, out of love for the Jewish history, culture, and tradition.”
The Lubliner Festival – the Jewish Culture Festival in Lublin is organized by the Ner Tamid – Eternal Light Foundation, which cultivates the memory of the Jewish ancestors and the culture of the Jewish nation. The Festival is co-organized by the Lublin City Office and the Centre for Culture in Lublin.
The Festival is of a non-commercial and educational nature – participation in all the events is free and selected events will also be available online (www.lublinerfestival.com and https://www.facebook.com/lublinerfestival/).
The Festival is co-organized by the National Centre for Culture, the Lublin City Office, and the Centre for Culture in Lublin – the largest municipal institution in the region, involved in multidirectional, open, artistic, and educational activities, as well as the dissemination and popularization of culture through various forms of activity and by creating the right conditions for creative activity.
Lubliner Festival – Jewish Culture Festival (3 edition) – a task co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund – a state earmarked fund, as part of the” Music “program, implemented by the National Institute of Music and Dance and funds from the National Cultural Center
The project is co-financed by the Minister of the Interior and Administration
Project co-financed by the Embassy of the State of Israel in Warsaw
Project co-financed by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
The project is co-financed by the Lublin Province
The project is implemented thanks to the support of the City of Lublin and the Cultural Center in Lublin
Main sponsor Perła – Browary Lubelskie S. A.