Yesterday, with the support of Honorary Consulate of the State of Israel in Western Ukraine, in Lviv started the VIII International Festival of Jewish music “LvivKlezFest 2016”: during two weeks, the citizens and guests of the city will be able to become familiar with the Jewish culture and traditional arts.

This year's festival will be held under a symbolic slogan: “760 years of unique stories of Lviv: Jewish music returns!” Lviv is a unique city where representatives of different cultures and different nationalities peacefully coexisted for centuries. This city has always been tolerant to all. Thus today’s Lviv is a city that has combined rich symbiosis of traditions of peoples living there. History of Jews has a special place in the life of Lviv, they are inseparable. This is not just another page, this is the true face of the modern city, which has arisen due to close relations between Jews, Ukrainian, Polish and all those who inhabit Lviv.

This year musicians, actors, artists, singers and bands from Ukraine, Israel, Poland, the USA, Germany will come to honor the ancient city. Each of them will tell their own story similar to those, thanks to which Lviv have developed. The festival program is very diverse, and includes interesting exhibitions and theatre performances, master classes of Jewish and modern Israeli dances, bard song chamber and street concerts under an open sky. You can learn about the history of the Jewish quarter of Lviv during media tours with professional guides speaking Ukrainian and English. Klezmer music is a traditional music of Eastern European Jews. This is dance music, music of joy, happiness, to which Jewish, Ukrainian, Gypsy, Moldovan and Romanian weddings have been celebrated.

The festival will continue until June, 5. On the final day of the festival the audience is welcomed to a grand celebration outdoors at Rynok Square: from 2 p. m. to 10 p. m. klezmer-bands from different countries of the world will play at joint gala concert. Among the stars of the festival there are world-famous Daniel Kahn, Alan Bern, Cristian David and Frank London, Grammy Award winner. More details of the festival program you can find here

I invite everyone, who wishes to become familiar with the tradition of Jewish music during May, 23 - June, 5, to visit “LvivKlezFest-2016”! Welcome!