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The Jacob’s Ladder Festival will take place for the 38th time on May 22-24 at Nof Ginossar, on Lake Kinneret.

By BARRY DAVIS
Cameri Theater (photo credit: Lauren Izso)
Cameri Theater
(photo credit: Lauren Izso)
Jacob’s Ladder hits 38
The Jacob’s Ladder Festival will take place for the 38th time on May 22-24 at Nof Ginossar, on Lake Kinneret.
As usual, the three-day program is jam-packed with acts from across a wide range of genres, from folk to blues, bluegrass to trad jazz, with some funk, soul, R&B, pop and rock in the mix too.
The foreign draws include young Canadian bluegrass outfit The Slocan Ramblers and female foursome The Jammin’ Divas, who play and sing a colorful mix of traditional and contemporary music from Ireland, Australia and the United States. The latter group includes three vocalist-instrumentalists, as well as Israeli flutist Hadar Noiberg.
Elsewhere on the festival roster there are plenty of perennial Jacob’s Ladder performers, such as guitarist-harmonica player Shai Tochner, one-man band Paul Moore, harp player Sunita Staneslow and bouzouki player- vocalist Bracha Ben-Avraham.
There are also plenty of new names in the lineup, including Tamar Capsouto, who will perform a program of Joni Mitchell songs, and the Jokers & Thieves quintet, who will delight fans of folk and rock acts of the 1960s and 1970s.
There will also be a banjo workshop, a folk harp workshop and a Native American flute and storytelling session, as well as the regular shake-a-leg fixtures with Cyrelle Forman-Soffer’s square dancing spot and Manny Emanueli’s Irish dance workshop.
For tickets and more information: (04) 685-0403 and www.jlfestival.com
Forest fun
The sixth annual Ye’arot Menashe Festival will take place at Hakibbutzim Forest in Ramat Menashe, May 15 to 17.
The three-day program features a wide range of music and interdisciplinary art offerings, as well as workshops, games and activities for children, dance, theater, literary spots and plastic arts.
The performer lineup includes a top-draw confluence between funk-rock group Mercedes Band and veteran rock band Dr. Kasper’s Rabbit Show, the Singing Chava Alberstein show, featuring such frontliner female artists as Yael Deckelbaum and Karni Postel, blues-inflected singer-songwriter Shlomi Shaban, high-energy jazzpunk duo Maalox and stellar cellist- vocalist Maya Belsitzman.
For tickets and more information: www.yearot.com
Eurovision comes to Kfar Blum
It’s getting close to the Eurovision time of year, and the Pastoral Hotel at Kibbutz Kfar Blum will get into the song contest mood over the May 15-17 weekend with a program of Eurovision hits from down the years, as well as a tribute to the popular San Remo Italian Song Festival.
The weekend program also features a look at the history of several song festivals, in addition to the San Remo and Eurovision extravaganzas, including events from here. The retrospective will be presented by TV and radio personality Yigal Ravid.
The musical spots include singer Shira Noa Levy and guitarist- singer Oded Goldstein, who will perform a slew of Eurovision numbers, including Brotherhood of Man’s 1976 winner “Save Your Kisses for Me,” Johnny Logan’s 1980 winner for Ireland “What’s Another Year” and San Remo Festival winner and 1958 Italian Eurovision entry “Volare.” They will also play Israeli Eurovision entries such “Hai hai hai,” which was performed by Ofra Haza at the 1983 Eurovision bash, and “Diva,” which won the 1998 contest for Dana International.
In addition, there will be renditions of numbers from the Hassidic Song Festival, children’s song festivals and eastern song festivals.
For reservations and more information: (04) 683-6611 and www.kfarblum-hotel.co.il
This Child Is Me
The Tel Aviv Soloists Ensemble will kick off the third installment of the “It’s a Doll of a Concert” children’s musical series at the Israeli Music Conservatory in Tel Aviv, at 11 a.m. on May 17.
The new concert, “This Child Is Me” features an appearance by veteran writer Yehuda Atlas, as well as the Moran youth choir. They will perform material from the album This Child Is Me, which incorporates poems written by Atlas in music scored by Avner Kaner.
The concert, which is aimed at the five-to-10 age group and parents, includes plenty of humor and is emceed by an endearing puppet named Kanon.
For tickets and more information about the first concert: 054-494- 0317, 054-320-3470. Additional performances will take place at the Tel Aviv Museum on June 7 at 11 a.m. ((03) 607-7020), Einan Hall in Modi’in on June 11 at 5:30 p.m.
(08) 973-7333/0) and Heichal Ba’ir in Herzliya on June 17 at 5:30 p.m. (1-700-702-929)