From the Managing Director

Every year, JFest grows and changes and surprises me. As we put together programming, our season is shaped by the artists—new artists, of course; but also artists that we collaborate with year after year. We are similarly shaped by the loving San Diego community that shows up with us. This kind of long-term sustained relationship between artist and community is special and extremely rare.

I have watched artists come to JFest during one chapter of their life, and return at another, bringing a new facet of themselves in work that they’ve created from a different perspective. Every time, our San Diego community has shown up with immense curiosity, wide openness, and deep acceptance.

I don’t remember when I first met Ali Viterbi because it was before I turned five. But I remember watching her onstage throughout my entire childhood and being in absolute awe of her. Observing her growth over the years: from actor, to playwright, to brilliant playwright, has been inspirational. So our developmental reading of Budapest, Budapest, the first musical she’s worked on, feels like a minor culmination of many years that we’ve been moving together towards our artistic futures—even when we didn’t know it. I look forward to many more collaborations with her, and I am so excited to see what she will create next. And I know our supportive JFest community is sure to be there alongside her.

And then there is Nusach San Diego. I grew up singing at Congregation Beth Israel, and Jewish music lives in my body the way that childhood things do: so familiar that I can sing along with my eyes closed. Adapting Rabbi Cantor Jeremy Gimbel’s research thesis into this concert has meant returning to the music I grew up with seen through completely new eyes (older and hopefully wiser). I’ve spent much of my own time researching the nexus where secular music and Jewish music meet, overlap, and inform each other. Pairing music that I heard my parents play when I was a kid (the “oldies”) with Jewish music that I grew up learning has deepened my relationship with both.

That is what JFest does to me every year. It takes something I thought I already knew and makes me hear it in a brand new way. It helps me see the growth and change in the artists and the community around me.

I’m excited to see what surprises us all tonight.