Sound & Sense: Jewish Music @ York - Lenka Lichtenberg’s Thieves of Dreams Jan 14, 2024

The Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies and the Department of Music in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design are proud to present 2023 Juno Award winner Lenka Lichtenberg and her deeply personal magnum opus Thieves of Dreams. The project is based on recently discovered poems written by her grandmother Hana in the years 1942-1945 while she was imprisoned in Theresienstadt, a WWII concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. The album, released in May 2022, has gone on to garner enthusiastic responses worldwide — including the Juno win and two Canadian Folk Music Award nominations.

In an immersive, multi-media performance, Hana’s powerful poems of love, relationships, dreams of far-away places, hope and faith come to life through a gripping narrative built on the music from the album, spoken word and storytelling, archival footage, sand art and videos. The show’s music ranges from multi-part a cappella compositions to chamber music and jazz, with songs and poems in their English translations. Touring in Europe in June 2023 and heading to Brazil and Argentina in the fall of 2023, Lenka, York University alumni (MFA, Ethnomusicology) is excited to share her work with the York University community.

Thieves of Dreams is performed by Lenka Lichtenberg (script, vocals, synthesizer); Fern Lindzon (piano, vocals), Rebekah Wolkstein (violin, guitar); Joseph Phillips (double bass) and Auri Fell (vocals, voice percussion, saxophone, ukulele). Directed by Leah Cherniak, with projections and visuals by Lumir Hladik.

Lenka Lichtenberg JUNO Award Winner, vocalist, composer, cantorial singer and a producer, Lenka aspires to build bridges among cultures and transcend the artificial boundaries between folk, jazz, world and classical music in a passionate and often deeply spiritual celebration of her roots. Since relocating to Toronto after spending her early days as a notable child star in her native Prague, the multilingual vocalist has been a prolific collaborator and has also released seven albums of her own. Her works have received dozens of awards and nominations, including two Canadian Folk Music Awards and Independent Music Award. Two of her outings were released worldwide on the U.K.’s ARC Music label, while her latest Thieves of Dreams, 2023 JUNO Award winner for Global Music Album of the Year, is distributed by Six Degrees worldwide, and by Supraphon in the Czech Republic. Lenka tours internationally both as a soloist and with one of her Canadian or Czech ensembles.

This event has been made possible thanks to generous support from the Azrieli Foundation.