Ashkenaz Festival is North America’s largest festival of Yiddish and Jewish culture, showcasing artists of music, film, theatre, dance, literature, craft and visual arts from Canada and around the world. Now in its 9th biennial, the festival is aimed at people of all ages and backgrounds.

This year’s programming has a global slant, featuring artists from places such as Uganda, India, Central Asia, Australia, and Mexico appearing at the festival – and in some cases, in Canada – for the first time. The 2012 Ashkenaz Festival runs August 28 to September 3 at Harbourfront Centre (235 Queen’s Quay W.) and to help you navigate through its extensive list of programming, we’ve picked our top 10 must-attend events. For a complete list of programming, check out the Ashkenaz website.

Opa!
August 30, 12 pm, Indigo Books at Bay & Bloor (55 Bloor St. W.), free; September 1, 11 pm, Brigantine Room, free
Fresh off a European tour of packed houses and hour-long encores, Opa! unites musicians from different parts of the former USSR in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Making their North American debut, the band combines post-Soviet klezmer and pop with reggae, ska, funk and rock to create electrifying party music.

Theatre Panik’s Corpse Bride
August 30, 8 pm, Enwave Theatre; September 1, 5 pm, Enwave Theatre; September 2, 1 pm, Enwave Theatre; all shows are $25 in advance or $30 day-of
A young groom on the way to his bride’s village accidentally weds himself to a Corpse Bride in this darkly comedic spin on shtetl folklore. Based on a classic folktale by famous medieval scholar Rabbi Luria, The Corpse Bride pays tribute to Yiddish theatrical tradition, silent film and cabaret through live music, stylized movement and projections.

Socalled
September 1, 9:45 pm, WestJet Stage, free
Socalled is a pianist, producer, composer, arranger, rapper, singer, journalist, photographer, filmmaker, magician, cartoonist and puppet-maker based in Montreal, Quebec. Mixing old sounds with his own sample-based beats, Socalled found his own voice through his discovery of old “Jewish” music on vinyl: Hassidic, Israeli, klezmer, cantorial synagogue music, and Yiddish theatre tunes.

Ira Moskowitz: Mystical Routes
September 1-3, noon to 11 pm, Marilyn Brewer Community Space, free
Ira Moskowitz is an artist from Eastern Europe who traveled the world in search of the mystical. The son and grandson of rabbis, he was profoundly influenced by his Hassidic background but left the Hassidic fold as a teenager to pursue art and find his own spirituality. He traveled within the United States and Europe and lived in New York, Palestine, Mexico, New Mexico, and Israel. The spirit of these worldly communities are captured in his paintings, drawings, and prints and this show is a sampling of his visual diary.

Klezmerson
September 2, 12 pm, Sunday Brunch at Free Times Café (320 College St.); September 3, 3 pm, WestJet Stage, free
A band that hails from Mexico City, Klezmerson explores the Jewish musical tradition while reflecting the diverse urban sounds of their hometown.Embracing electronica, rock, funk and jazz improvisations over Klezmer themes, Klezmerson delivers a high-energy concert experience. Their appearance at the festival will be the band’s first in Canada, and the first appearance ever by a Mexican artist at Ashkenaz.

Sharon & Bram
September 2, 3 pm, Redpath Stage, free
The artists formerly known as Sharon, Lois & Bram have a repertoire that includes over 20 recordings, three song-books, six national TV specials, 65 episodes of The Elephant Show, and 52of Skinnamarink TV. The group was inducted into The Order of Canada in 2002 and Sharon Hampson and Bram Morrison have continued as a duo since Lois Lilienstein retired in 2000. Expect to hear classics like “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain”, “Five Little Monkeys”, “One Elephant”, “Tingalayo”, and, of course, “Skinnamarink” plus songs from their common Yiddish heritage.

The Abayudaya
September 2, 7 pm, Lakeside Terrace, free
The Abayudaya, whose tribal name means “people of Judah,” live in rural villages in eastern Uganda and trace their Jewish origins to the turn of the 20th century. The community grew to 3,000 before 1971 when Idi Amin Dada came to power and banned the Jewish practice, and the community would shrink to a few hundred that had to conceal their faith and worship secretly. Now a growing community of over 1,500 Jews, their leader Rabbi Gershom Sizomu is the first black rabbi in Sub-Saharan Africa. Their music blends the rhythms and harmonies of African music with Jewish celebration and traditional Hebrew prayer.

Lemon Bucket Orkestra
September 2, 11 pm, Brigantine Room, free
Lemon Bucket Orkestra are self-described as a “Balkan-klezmer-Gypsy-party-punk super-band” who grew out of a conversation between a Breton accordionist and a Ukrainian fiddler in a Vietnamese restaurant on Yonge Street. In a few short months, the original quartet became a thirteen-piece band which is now gaining a reputation as Toronto’s liveliest party band. (Watch their fantastic performance on a plane during a delay from Toronto to Frankfurt.)

Papercutting Workshop
September 3, 5-7 pm, South Orchard Tent, free
Papercutting is a traditional folk art used by many cultural communities including Jewish, Polish, Mexican, and Chinese as well as many contemporary artists today. Last summer, Toronto-based Kosa Kolektiv had the opportunity to take part in a papercutting workshop at the Jewish Cultural Festival in Krakow, Poland. Combining techniques from the workshop in Krakow and their own process and style, Kosa brings this unique workshop for the first time to the festival.

Leo Spellman’s Rhapsody 1939-1945
September 3, 6 pm, Enwave Theatre, $20 in advance
or $25 day-of
Leo Spellman (Szpilman) is a 99-year-old composer and Holocaust survivor who settled in Toronto after World War II. The Szpilman family was a revered musical dynasty in Poland for over 100 years; his cousin, Wladyslaw Szpilman, is the subject of the Oscar-winning Roman Polanski film The Pianist. Spellman’s “Rhapsody 1939-1945” was composed in 1947 in a displaced person’s camp in Germany but after immigrating to Canada, the score was packed away in a suitcase and forgotten for over 50 years. Now finally recorded, “Rhapsody 1939-1945” will be performed in Canada for the first time. It depicts three themes: the horror of war, the sadness of loss, and the hope for a better tomorrow.

~ Caitlyn Holroyd