The Ashkenaz Festival, North America’s largest celebration of global Jewish music and culture, returns with a full slate of in-person programming in the first live edition of the normally biennial event since 2018. The Ashkenaz Festival is presented Aug. 30 - Sept. 5, 2022 at Harbourfront Centre and venues across Toronto.

This year’s Festival is headlined by the North American premiere of Henekh Kon’s “Bas-Sheve,” the first Yiddish opera ever presented in Canada. “Lost” for nearly a century, and incomplete when initially re-discovered five years ago, the now fully-restored work is based on the controversial biblical story of David and Bathsheba. Three shows will take place at Toronto’s Glenn Gould Studio (250 Front Street), including one matinee.

Another timely and ambitious undertaking for this year’s festival is a supergroup commissioned specially for this occasion to present a program of old and new Jewish folk music from Ukraine. The Ukrainian Klezmer All-Stars will perform songs by the legendary Yiddishist Arkady Gendler (1921-2017) as well as by the contemporary Jewish “songbird” of Ukraine, Zhenya Lopatnik, plus music from the repertoire of the Bessarabian family brass band Konsonans Retro.

Some more highlights include: Ethiopian-Israeli saxophonist Abate Berihun;

Persian-American singer and violinist Chloe Pourmorady; American-Jewish bluegrass sensation Nefesh Mountain (who recently debuted at the Grand Ole Opry); Israeli-Ladino dynamo Noam Vezana, and ROMada, a Canadian-Romani supergroup commissioned by Ashkenaz in the summer of 2021.

In total, the Ashkenaz Festival will include approximately 50 events at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre and other venues in the city.