Event Details

Positioned firmly within the context of Ontario's multi-cultural community, the Ashkenaz Foundation is a community-based non-profit organization dedicated to both preserving and broadly sharing Yiddish and global Jewish culture. The focal point of this effort is the biennial Ashkenaz Festival, widely-recognized as one of the world’s leading festivals in its class is held at one of Ontario's premiere tourist destinations, Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre, and other venues across the GTA, draws a multicultural audience of over 60,000 people to its 75-90 performances, featuring 200+ individual artists from Canada and around the world.

"This application is for the “Ashkenaz Festival Expansion”, taking place March 25 to September 2, 2024, at various locations in Toronto. Ashkenaz’s proposed enhancement project will position their summer-ending Festival as the culmination of a series of new and expanded events taking place over six months beginning in early spring. The key events in building and sustaining this campaign will be a spring concert featuring the international supergroup the Ger Mandolin Orchestra, and a four-part, free outdoor concert series at North Toronto’s Earl Bales Park entitled Summer Jam. These bi-weekly double bill concerts will feature mostly Canadian Jewish roots artists paired with more eclectic rock and pop acts. The last of these four concerts will lead directly into the launch of the signature Ashkenaz Festival, that takes place August 27 to September 2 at Harbourfront. Programming details include:

(1) Marquee Performance by the Ger Mandolin Orchestra, March 25-28, 2024: a one-of-a- kind,12-piece international supergroup that revives a nearly extinct musical tradition (a full range of mandolin family instruments). This project will include world premiere live performances, at Toronto’s iconic Glenn Gould Studio as well as a live radio performance from Toronto’s Zoomer Studios, broadcast on Classical 96FM;

(2) Retro Ashkenaz free online series: a recurring online series on the first Sunday of each month featuring professionally edited videos of live performances and interviews captured at the last Ashkenaz Festival;

(3) Partner Programs: a number of smaller scale events linked to key holidays and events in the Jewish community calendar, including Passover, Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah) and performances presented in collaboration with the Toronto Jewish Film Festival and Toronto Downtown Jazz Festival;

(4) Summer Jam Concert Series (Monday evenings July 15 to August 26): a free concert series piloted in 2023 at Earl Bales Park in North Toronto. Expanding from a series of three events to four concerts modelled on last summer’s productions, each of these bi-weekly double bills will pair a Jewish roots music act typical of what is programed in their biennial festival, with a more pop- or rock-oriented cover band; and

(5) The 14th Ashkenaz Festival (August 27 to September 2 at Harbourfront Centre and other venues around the GTA): The Festival program will range widely, including events related to traditional Klezmer and Yiddish music, Sephardic and Ladino traditions, Mizrachi and middle-eastern heritage, and a wide range of cross-cultural fusion touching on such eclectic styles as gospel, funk, jazz, hip hop, bluegrass, country, blues and more. As always, the Festival will focus heavily on music, with additional programming in theatre, dance, literature, film, food and family and children’s musical and craft activities."