Hanukkah Concert Rescheduled

SOUTHBURY — A treat is in store for adults and children of all ages on Sunday, December 16, at 2 pm, when San Francisco-based singer Mark Levy makes an encore appearance for a concert of Hanukkah music. (This concert was rescheduled last week from its original date of December 2.)

Mr Levy will be performing at the Walzer Family Jewish Community Campus, 444 Main Street North. The intergenerational concert is sponsored by the Federation-Jewish Communities of Western Connecticut, Inc, Heritage Village Hadassah and the Jewish Culture Club of Heritage Village.

He will perform holiday songs in Yiddish, Ladino, Hebrew, and English. Mr Levy’s heartfelt rendering of Jewish folksongs has earned him a reputation for outstanding programs for all ages. Refreshments will be served after the performance.

Descended from an Ashkenazi (eastern European) mother and a Sephardi (Spanish-Jewish) father, Mark Levy combines the beautiful melodies of both traditions together with Hebrew and Ladino songs in a versatile performance that transports the listener to another time and place. Accompanied by guitar and dumbek (Middle Eastern drum), the selections depict scenes from a bygone era of Jewish life, and programs always include well-loved favorites.

He has recorded many of these on four albums. Whether singing an old Yiddish lullaby or a new tune of his own, Mr Levy delivers a song with such feeling and conviction that audiences around the world are mesmerized.

 Mark Levy has performed and taught in the San Francisco Bay area for 25 years at synagogues, JCCs, Lehrhaus Judaica, Workmen’s Circle, and other Jewish groups. He has appeared throughout the country and abroad and is a singer and lecturer who specializes in older Judaic folk music in Yiddish, Hebrew, and Ladino, Klezmer history and theory, and Jewish music history in general.

He has performed for Yeshiva University Sephardic Department’s Semana Sepharad in New York, and is a cantorial soloist in California. He recently released a fourth album of Jewish music titled Bin Ikh Mir A Shnayderl: Yiddish Work Songs, in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of Workmen’s Circle, a fraternal order of Jewish workers and their families.

Admission for Sunday’s performance is $5 for adults and free for children under 6, payable at the door.

For more information, contact Debby Horowitz, Brownstein Jewish Family Service Director, at 267-3177, extension 105; Celia Schwartz of the Jewish Culture Club at 264-0961; or Sandy Marcus of Heritage Village Hadassah at 264-9136.