August
in Chicago finds the city awash in popular summer music festivals like
Lollapolooza and its vibrant theatre community relatively quiet in advance of
the fall season. Likewise, in advance of
early High Holidays with a couple leisurely weeks before Selichot, the Jewish cultural front is busy yet quietly preparing
for the season ahead.
It’s
your last chance to catch Mona Golabek in The
Pianist of Willesden Lane, extended into August. This musical play recounts
the inspiring true story of survival of Golabek’s own mother, Lisa Jura. The
talented young pianist’s dreams of performing at Europe’s finest concert halls
were dashed as the continent became engulfed in war and the Nazi onslaught
threatened her very life. The play
follows her escape from Vienna and arrival in London aboard a kindertransport
during the Blitzkreig. Her entire life is
upheaved with only the music she plays to keep her grounded. The show is presented by performer and
pianist Hershey Felder and has a limited run at the Royal George Theatre in
Chicago.
The Maxwell Street Klezmer Band recaptures
the sound of Chicago’s turn of the century Jewish immigrants and recreates the
carnivalesque atmosphere of the famed west side open air marketplace and
Yiddish theater of yesteryear at two free performances this month. The first is
7 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 7 on the Village Green on Oakton in Downtown Skokie.
The second is 4 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 18 at the Fountain Square Gazebo in Long
Grove.
Israeli
singer/songwriter Maya Isacowitz performs
a rare Chicago appearance. Her indie-folk sound has turned many heads, and she has begun to build a following in the U.S. She grew up on Kibbutz Ma’ayan Baruch in the
northern part of Israel. Raised in a
musical family, her quartet of violin, bass, and percussion includes her cousin
on lead guitar. Maya’s 2011 debut album, “Safe & Sound” circulated widely
in Israel thanks to airplay on the IDF radio station “Galgalatz.” Soon she was
being touted as a “Discovery” in the Israeli press and performing throughout the
country. Last year she collaborated with Amit Duvdevani’s popular band,
“Infected Mushroom,” on a track for their new album and was named by “Best New
Artist” by Israel’s version of ASCAP. In May of 2013, she headlined the
“Jacob’s Ladder” folk festival. She performs at 7 p.m. on Aug. 11 at the
Northwest Indiana Jewish Federation Community Building, 585 Progress Avenue,
Munster, Indiana.
The
Chicago Klezmer Ensemble, featuring
Kurt Bjorling on Clarinet and Eve Monzingo on Tsimbal, makes a local appearance
at the City Winery’s new World Music Brunch on its Randolph Street patio. The
ensemble’s preservationist approach to Eastern European Jewish folk music is
strictly instrumental but lively and highly infectious. Sunday 8/25 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.,
City Winery, 1200 W. Randolph, Chicago.
As
people of the book, text is the primary medium of our history. Textiles,
however, have also played an interesting role, and not just in the shmatteh
business. Woof and Drash: Weaving the Jewish Experience, a new exhibit at
Spertus Institute, opens late this month, featuring the work of Oak Park
resident Berit Engen. She takes inspiration from disparate Judaic sources
ranging from halacha to the songs of Leonard Cohen, to ancient prayers, to Yiddish
curses and the prophetic wisdom, weaving them into miniature midrash
tapestries. Opens Sunday, Aug. 25 at Spertus Institute, 610 S. Michigan Avenue,
Chicago.
If
Selichot and the forthcoming High
Holidays haven’t inspired you to set foot into Synagogue over the summer,
perhaps a bus tour of Chicago-area synagogues focusing on architecture will. In
conjunction with the Shalom Chicago
exhibit, expert tour guide and architectural historian Rolf Achilles, who
lectures on historic preservation at the School of the Art Institute, leads The Synagogue Speaks, which will
examine the design, art, and sacred stories of the area’s oldest, greenest and
most modern synagogue buildings.
Achilles has written extensively about architecture in Chicago and
co-authored a book on the stained glass windows of Temple Sholom. Sunday, August 11, 2013 - 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
at the Chicago History Museum, 1601 N. Clark Street, Chicago. Call (312) 642-4600
$50-55.
Adam
Davis is the Cantorial Soloist at Congregation Sukkat Shalom in Wilmette as
well as founder and executive director ofKFAR Jewish Arts Center, a leading
presenter and advocate of contemporary Jewish arts, music, and culture programs
in and around Chicago.For more information on these events or to make suggestions or offer
feedback, e-mail Adam at adam@kfarcenter.org or call (773) 362-4760.
