Payadora CD Release Concert: Silent Tears, The Last Yiddish Tango

As part of Women’s History Month, and to celebrate Lenka Lichtenberg’s recent Juno Nomination, The Payadora Tango Ensemble presents Silent Tears: The Last Yiddish Tango. This award-winning program featuring vocalists Lenka Lichtenberg and Aviva Chernick is based on poems, testimonies and writings of women who were victims of horrific atrocities during the Holocaust. Some are from a project led by Dr. Paula David, a social worker at the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care who helped survivors process their trauma by writing collective poetry. Others are from Molly Applebaum, a Canadian author, who, during her adolescent years, was buried underground in a small wooden box in a barn in Dąbrowa Tarnowska, Poland during World War II.

“Silent Tears: The Last Yiddish Tango” is a story of incredible resilience by women who overcame unimaginable horrors and wanted to share those stories with the world about the dangers of racism and xenophobia.

The project won two “Bubbe Awards” at Kleztival, the highest honour in Yiddish music (for Best New Yiddish Song and Best Jewish Music Video), and sold out its premiere at Ottawa’s National Arts Centre.

As a special bonus, Czech-Canadian singer Lenka Lichtenberg will perform several songs from her Juno-nominated album, “Thieves of Dreams: Songs of Theresienstadt’s Secret Poetess.” That album, which has received critical acclaim around the world, is based on poetry that her grandmother Anna Hana Friesová wrote while imprisoned at the Theresienstadt concentration camp during the Holocaust, and only discovered after Lenka’s mother recently passed away. “These were her dreams and nightmares from inside the concentration camp, the stories she never told me when I was growing up,” Lenka explained.

A special concert to celebrate the release of the CD, “Silent Tears: The Last Yiddish Tango” on Six Degrees Records and Lenka’s Lichtenberg’s Juno Nomination for “Thieves of Dreams: Songs of Theresienstadt’s Secret Poetess.”

Featuring: Rebekah Wolkstein (violin, composer), Lenka Lichtenberg (vocals, composer), Aviva Chernick (vocals), Drew Jurecka (bandoneon, musical director), Robert Horvath (piano), Joseph Phillips (double bass), Dr. Paula David (speaker), Dan Rosenberg (narrator)

We would like to thank the Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, the Toronto Workmen’s Circle Foundation and the UJA’s Committee for Yiddish for all of their support for this project and event.