Toronto Jewish Folk Choir's 83^rd Spring Concert
Celebrating Theodore Bikel and the memory of Srul Irving Glick
With special guest soloist Mitch Smolkin

Sunday May 31, 2009
3:00 p.m.
Leah Posluns Theatre, 4588 Bathurst Street

The Toronto Jewish Choir, Canada's oldest continuing Jewish choral group, celebrates two beloved figures in Jewish music in its 83^rd annual spring concert. Alexander Veprinsky conducts the 30-voice Choir in a salute to singer and actor Theodore Bikel on his 85^th birthday, and remembers the late composer Srul Irving Glick (1934-2002) on the 75^th anniversary of his birth.

The Choir remembers the Jewish music of Srul Irving Glick by performing Glick's Time Cycle (Yiddish Suite No. 2), with words by the Toronto Yiddish poet Peretz Miransky (1908-1993), as well as A Glezele Lechaim (A Glass of Cheer), and his paean to peace, Lo Yisa Goy (Nation shall not lift up arms against nation). The Bikel tribute features songs in Yiddish and Hebrew and selections from Fiddler on the Roof. The Choir will also perform the well-known Sephardic songs La Rosa Enflorece (The Rose Blooms) and Adio Querida (Farewell, Beloved). The 50^th anniversary of the 1958 Springhill mine disaster is marked with The Ballad of Springhill.

Pianist is Lina Zemelman, with soloists Miriam Eskin, soprano and Herman Rombouts, bass. Tenor Mitch Smolkin, well-known for his Yiddish repertoire, appears as guest soloist in the Bikel tribute. As well, he performs a solo set with the effervescent Nina Shapilsky on piano.

Tickets are $20.00 in advance, $25.00 at the door; children 12 and under free.
For information and ticket reservations, call (416) 636-0936 or e-mail tjfolkchoir@sympatico.ca.
For Visa orders, call 416-398-3405. Download the concert poster.

Presented with the assistance of the Toronto Arts Council, Ben Shek and family in memory of his parents (20th anniversary of his father's passing and fifth anniversary of his mother's), Jim Buller, the Ben and Hilda Katz Charitable Foundation and the Peretz Miransky Fund of the Jewish Foundation of Greater Toronto.