The mission of the Jewish Music Festival is to present music that celebrates the Jewish experience and explores what it means to be Jewish in a multicultural world. The Festival produces creative and entertaining programs, challenges stereotypes, and fosters engagement with the broader community.
Jewish Music Festival, March 2006
Music that celebrates the Jewish experience and explores what it means to be Jewish in a multi-cultural world.
View previous years: Concert Archives.
The Jewish Music Festival’s hotel of choice is the Woodfin Suites Hotel in Emeryville, a quality Bay Area place to come back to after you enjoy the concerts!
STAFF
Eleanor Shapiro, Co-Director JMF 1997-2003; Director 2004 –
Former Development Director, The Crowden School & Crowden Center for Music in the Community; Public Relations Officer, San Francisco Municipal Railway; Public Information Officer, San Francisco Public Library; Staff Writer, Jewish Bulletin of Northern California. Community Outreach for SF Jewish Film Festival and the Magnes Museum; former singer/performer with Young Audiences (a program that brings music to public schools); teacher and journalist, based in Jerusalem, 1983-1990. BA, History and Judaic and Near East Studies, Oberlin College; MA, Journalism, UC Berkeley.
Briget Boyle, half time Administrative Assistant –
professional singer, Kitka Eastern European Women’s Vocal Ensemble; administration support for Kitka, formerly for Eastern European Folklife Center and Songwriting Works; former sound engineer, College of Santa Fe; Sophomore of the Year; Freshman Composer / Songwriter of the Year, College of Santa Fe Contemporary Music Program.
Joel Bashevkin, Executive Director, BRJCC, 1999 –
Former Deputy Director of Finance and Administration, The Jewish Museum of San Francisco (1992 – 97); Administrator, Through the Looking Glass, Berkeley; Operations Manager, Boston Food Bank; BA, Nutritional Anthropology, Tufts University; MA, Non-Profit Management and Urban Policy, Tufts University.
National Artistic Advisors
Michael Alpert is internationally known for his performances and recordings of klezmer music with Brave Old World, Kapelye and other groups. A research associate with the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, he is considered a major authority on traditional Eastern European Jewish music and dance. Alpert is the Emmy Award-winning musical director of the PBS Great Performances special Itzhak Perlman: In the Fiddler’s House. He was executive producer of Perlman’s two recordings of klezmer music on Angel/EMI, and directed the subsequent international concert tours.
Theodore Bikel (Honorary) made his concert debut at the Carnegie Recital Hall in 1956 in a folk song program. Every year since then, he has performed in concerts throughout the U.S.A., Canada, and Europe; including appearances with more than a dozen symphony orchestras. Mr. Bikel has recorded 20 record albums mostly for the Elektra label in addition to releases on Columbia, Peter Pan, and Reprise and was a co-founder of the Newport Folk Festival. His book Folksongs and Footnotes, published by Meridian Books (World Publishing) in 1961, had three reprint editions. He is also internationally acclaimed as a film and theater actor.
Yair Dalal is a leading figure on the Israeli and international world music scene, both as a soloist and in collaboration with his ensemble Al Ol. Born in Israel in 1955 to Iraqi parents, he has performed worldwide with artists including the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra with Maestro Zubin Mehta and the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, specializing in original music inspired by music of the Middle East.
Ronnie Gilbert is a former member of the celebrated group, The Weavers, which brought folk rhythms and social activism to the mainstream, even as they were blacklisted during the McCarthy era. She has worked for many years as an actor, including work with Joseph Chaikin in The Open Theater and as a solo performer. She has more than two dozen CDs to her credit, as a soloist and with other artists.
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett is professor of Performance Studies at NYU. Her teaching, research, and writing encompass the aesthetics of everyday life, world’s fairs, museum theater, tourist productions, food and performance, Jewish performance, folklore, and ethnography.
Frank London is a Grammy-nominated musician and composer who plays trumpet and keyboards as a member of the Klezmatics, an internationally acclaimed klezmer ensemble that has sold more than 80,000 albums world-wide. He has composed for film, theater and dance, including John Sayles’ The Brother from Another Planet and Tony Kushner’s A Dybbuk, as well as for violinist Itzhak Perlman.
Cantor Ramón Tasat sings in Hebrew, Ladino, Spanish, Italian and English. He holds a doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin in Voice Performance. A featured artist in international music festivals, he has produced 9 recordings and a book, Sephardic Songs for All.
Steering Committee
Rachel Biale
Director, Community Education, Osher Marin Jewish Community Center, 1999
Former Senior Clinician, Jewish Family and Children’s Services of the East Bay; author of Women and Jewish Law, published by Schocken Books, 1984. The book received the Kenneth Smilen Award of the Jewish Museum, New York in 1985 in the category of Jewish Thought, and was re-issued in a new edition in 1995. She was born and raised on Kibbutz Kfar Ruppin, Israel. BA and MA, Jewish History, UCLA; MSW, Yeshiva University, NY.
Denah S. Bookstein
Board Member, BRJCC
Artist; former social worker; gallery owner. Former chair, subcommittee on disabilities, SF Jewish Family and Children’s Service; participant, Mitzvah Care Program – a joint program of SFJFCS and the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center. BS, MA, MSW, University of Michigan.
Arthur Goldman
Vice President, Ritchie Commercial Corporation
Board Member, BRJCC
Past president, BRJCC; trustee, board member and past president, Congregation Beth El, Berkeley; former board member Jewish Federation of the Greater East Bay. Former assistant director, National Commission on Urban Problems, Washington, D.C. (a Presidential Commission); former planner Department of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, D.C. BA, Brown University; Masters of City Planning, Harvard University.
A.Robin Orden
Senior Management Analyst, Finance Department, City of Berkeley
More than 30 years experience in art and design education, consumer and housing cooperatives, public service and nonprofit organizations. Positions have included Director of Career Counseling & Placement at Parsons School of Design; Director of the National Artspace Development Network; Assistant to the Mayor of Berkeley, 1990 – 1995; former Managing Director of Musical Traditions/Paul Dresher Ensemble. Former board member and officer with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players; founding President, Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center in Berkeley; past board member, Nancy Karp + Dancers, and the International Performance Network. BA, Harpur College, SUNY Binghamton; MA, Media Studies, New School for Social Research, NY.
Tony Phillips
Attorney
San Francisco native; twenty years experience in general business litigation practice, with emphasis on legal malpractice and insurance coverage disputes; former Senior Editor of the Stanford Law Review, and federal appellate court clerk. Musician playing mandolin, fiddle, guitar and related instruments with various Jewish music, world music, bluegrass, and other groups; member, Steering Committee of the San Francisco Mandolin Festival; legal advisor, KlezCalifornia, an annual Yiddish music and cultural program. BA, Harvard College; JD, Stanford Law School. Former member of the panel convened to plan the organizational future of the Jewish Music Festival.
Janis Plotkin
Instructor, Stanford University
Programmer, Mill Valley Film Festival; Film Curator, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. An internationally recognized leader in the field of independent Jewish subject cinema; former Executive Artistic Director, San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, 1982 – 2002; instrumental in building diverse audiences that reached 35,000 attendees; programmer for KQED broadcasts of Jewish subject cinema; co-producer of the first Jewish Film Festival in Moscow,1990; co-producer of the Jewish Film Festival, Madrid, commemorating the 500th Anniversary of the Jewish Expulsion. Co-author, editor and publisher, Independent Jewish Film. B.A., Social Welfare, University of Washington-Seattle; dual Masters in Social Work and Jewish Community Studies, USC, and the Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles. Honorary Doctorate, Hebrew Union College, 2001. Former member of the panel convened to plan the organizational future of the Jewish Music Festival.
Jonathan Reinis
Producer, Jonathan Reinis Productions, 1975
Recent productions include Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues; Josh Kornbluth’s Love & Taxes; Russell Simmons’s Def Poetry Jam (Tony Award, 2003); Sam Sheppard’s The Late Henry Moss; Dame Edna; Ennio, His Way; Sandra Bernhardt; Steve Martin’s Picasso at the Lapin Agile; John Leguizamo’s premiere of Freak; the award-winning Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde; and Forever Tango. Forever Tango, Freak, Def Poetry Jam and Dame Edna transferred to Broadway after their successful San Francisco runs at Reinis’ theatre, Theatre on the Square, which he built in 1982 in San Francisco and operated for more than twenty years. BA, Anthropology, UC Berkeley, (Phi Beta Kappa).
Laura Sheppard
Director of Events, Mechanics’ Institute Library, SF 1999
Former producer, Jewish Music Festival, 1998-99; past producer, opening parties for the Degas Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1988) and Earth Day, Times Square and other locations (1990-1992) as well as other public festivals and events for more than 25 years. Former actor and recipient of two NEA Awards; former NEA theatre site reviewer. BFA, Theatre, Boston University’s School of Fine Arts.
Julie Sherman
Outreach Coordinator, Jewish Music Festival, 2005
Former program director, Community Health Partnership of Santa Clara County, a non-profit health organization working with a low-income population; quilt display coordinator, NAMES Project, Israel Tour, 1990; lay leader of the Jewish community in Santa Cruz, 1982 – 1995; member of Aquarian Minyan. Former member of the panel convened to plan the organizational future of the Jewish Music Festival.
Artistic Advisory Committee
Carole Baden, Program Associate, JMF 2005; recipient Dean’s Talent Award,
Oberlin Conservatory; Sephardic and Mizrahi music specialist.
Steve Baker, Director, Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse and the Berkeley Society for the Preservation of Traditional Music.
Ben Brinner, Professor of Ethnomusicology, UC Berkeley, Department of Music.
Stan Klezmer, Audio/Visual Specialist, Science Coordinator, Lawrence Berkeley Lab, University of California, Berkeley (retired); past board member, BRJCC.
Laura Sheppard, Events Director, Mechanics Institute Library, San Francisco. Former producer of Jewish Music Festival (1998, 1999); Board Member, KlezCalifornia.
Ed Silberman, Early Childhood Educator; folk, klezmer and Yiddish music specialist.
Dore Stein, Producer/Host of “Tangents”, a KALW radio program that explores world and roots music, and creative jazz hybrids; former music director at KKSF, where he was a five time Gavin Award nominee, a major industry award recognizing excellence in radio music programming.
Susan Swerdlow, Conductor of choral music at the College Preparatory School in Oakland. She also trains choruses for Oakland Opera Theater and Berkeley Opera. Former music director of Sacred and Profane Chamber Chorus.
Alexandra Wall, Staff Writer at J Weekly, the Bay Area’s Jewish newspaper, with special interest in the arts and inter-cultural relations.
Raya Zion, Workforce Development Manager, San Mateo County Central Labor Council; Fundraising Committee Chair, Chen Shapira Jewish Culture Fund; Israeli-born specialist in Sephardic, Mizrahi and Arabic music.