Dear visitors,
From December 15 to 18, Berlin will once again become a center of attraction for lovers of international synagogal music. I would like to welcome you to the Louis Lewandowski Festival 2022 and I am delighted about your interest.

This edition is dedicated to the traditions of synagogal music in Italy under the title “Viva l’Italia” and offers special opportunities to experience them up close at various venues. For example, in the Jewish Community Center in Fasanenstraße, the St. Nikolai Church in Potsdam, or in the Rykestraße Synagogue at the grand closing concert. Ensembles from Berlin, Israel, Switzerland, the United States and, of course, Italy demonstrate their artistic class at this festival and look forward to delighting the audience.

For more than a decade, the Louis Lewandowski Festival has become a Berlin highlight. Year after year, it opens up exciting avenues for its numerous visitors to engage with Jewish culture and stands for a strong and visible Jewish life in our city. I am very happy about this and would like to thank all those who, with their heart and soul and know-how, once again make such an enticing festival possible: The Association of Friends and Sponsors of the Synagogal Ensemble Berlin as well as the partners and sponsors.
I wish all guests enriching musical experiences, inspiring encounters during the festival days and much joy!

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen
Dear friends of synagogal music,

The music of Louis Lewandowski has a radiance that makes our hearts beat faster. All the more so when it is intoned by choir voices. Choirs from Israel, Italy, the USA, Switzerland and Berlin will give the audience unforgettable musical experiences under the motto “Viva L`Italia”.

As patron, I am very pleased that the professional preparation and organization of the festival will once again help to bring the work of Louis Lewandowski, this gifted composer and innovator of synagogal music in the 19th century, to a wider audience. In addition, the concerts are a welcome occasion to remind people that the synagogues of the Jewish communities are open to visitors even beyond cultural events. The festival concerts take place in synagogues as well as in churches – a beautiful, important sign of Jewish-Christian solidarity.

The festival program transports the music-loving audience into atmospheric worlds of sound. The diversity of Jewish life in Italy can be experienced in a special way through the synagogal songs. Look forward to a long reverberating journey through the history of Italian-Jewish music!

Mit herzlichen Grüßen

For the twelfth time since 2011, the Louis Lewandowski Festival is taking place in Berlin. And – due to Corona – for the second time this year, because the festival, which was actually scheduled for 2021, took place very successfully in the spring of this year. Thanks to the tireless efforts of its festival director, Nils Busch-Petersen, and his comrades-in-arms, the festival was saved through the difficult time of the pandemic and continues to be an integral part of our city’s cultural calendar.

The motto of the 12th Louis Lewandowski Festival this year is “Viva l’Italia”. Italy, this country so important for European Jewry, where Jewish life has flourished for more than 2000 years, is the focus of the festival. The coexistence of Jews of different traditions with the non-Jewish population, marked with ups and downs, gave rise to a special form of synagogal music and its own body of songs. Centuries-old traditions intertwined with the culture of Christian Italians. This unique song material will be performed by choirs from Israel, Italy, Switzerland, the USA and Berlin.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the participants, who have once again succeeded in putting together an extremely interesting and artistically high-quality program.

I wish the organizers, the artists and the hopefully very numerous guests good success, great success and above all much pleasure.