Yes folks, it’s “that” time of the year again – when our very own Jacob’s Ladder Festival rears its inviting and beloved visage, and we all get to shake a leg down by the lake. This year’s main spring edition of the festival takes place at its perennial berth of Nof Ginossar at the northwest corner of the Kinneret, May 14 to 16.
There are plenty of the usual suspects in the entertainment lineup, and therein many feel lies the event’s charm. One of the offshore headliners is the Abrams Brothers bluegrass rock outfit from Canada – which has performed several times, in various familial guises, over the past decade or so. Also from t’other side of t’ Pond (to be read, if possible, in a Yorkshire accent) comes US singer-songwriter Sonia Rustein, professionally known as SONiA Disappear Fear; while the European contingent features Berlin-based virtuoso violinist Alexey Kochetkov and the German-Israeli Aletchko quartet, with a beguiling mix of Balkan groove, Oriental sounds and other assorted high-energy textures and rhythms.
The recently refashioned Jacob’s Ladder website places the Merry Poppins quintet, which hails from Salzburg, Austria, in the jazz genre, but that only tells part of the band’s musical tale. Another click into the site’s “artist info” section reveals that the group indeed plays a wide spectrum of styles and genres, “from Balkan pop to jazz, urban roots, reggae and blues.”
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