Trio to Bring Jewish Dance Music to Old Poway Park

If you’re in the mood for an evening of Jewish tunes, will perform at 7 p.m. on Saturday at Templar’s Hall in .

The San Diego Folk Heritage event will feature a variety of traditional and new klezmer music, which includes instrumental and vocal Jewish dance pieces from Eastern Europe.

“There will be an instrumental piece that comes from the Carpathian Mountains in southwest Ukraine,” Strom said. “That’s kind of an upbeat piece versus several waltzes that come from Warsaw, Poland.” 

Bass player Jeff Pekarek will join Strom and Schwartz, who both make up a six-member band called Hot Pstromi. Strom is a violinist and vocalist while Schwartz is vocalist and hand percussionist.

“For the smaller venues, where we feel it’s more intimate, we’re just going to do the trio. We’re sometimes as large as six,” Strom said.

Schwartz will sing Getshinke, a song about a young girl from Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.

“It’s about a young girl and the difficulty of being in World War I and where she was living,” Storm said. 

The trio will also play tunes from The Witches of Lublin, an audio drama written by Strom, Schwartz and Ellen Kushner. The drama has been featured on National Public Radio.

“We’re adding some new tunes that we haven’t played before,” Strom said.  “We’ll contrast it with some slow and fast stuff. Also, we’ll mix pieces with stories of how we found the music.”

Strom is looking forward to a full house and audience participation.

”We’re looking forward to playing a couple tunes that people can sing along with us,” Storm said. “And hopefully, attracting new people who we haven’t seen us before and exposing them to music they haven’t heard before.”

The violinist will also enjoy performing with Pekarek.

“I’ve been playing with the bass player for 30 years, so when we play together, it resonates in a special way because we intuitively know each other so well,” Strom said.

Admission is $18 for non-members and $15 for members. Advanced ticket sales can be purchased online here at TicketWeb.com.

Art in the Park

Arts and crafts making will be available at Art in the Park at 10 a.m. on Monday, April 2, at the Auditorium Patio in . The event is family-friendly and free.