Beit בית بيت: An Evening of Poetry & Music for Tisha B'Av

In the final hours of Tisha B'Av, the Peretz Centre will host acclaimed klezmer musicians Zoë Aqua, Yonatan Kunda, and Dan Kunda Thagard for a unique public performance.

Beit בית بيت: An Evening of Poetry & Music for Tisha B'Av

Sunday, August 3rd, 2025

Doors at 7pm (show starts at 7:30pm)

Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture

6184 Ash Street, Vancouver, BC

Niggunim and scriptures meet original spoken word, klezmer and improvisation in Hebrew, English, Arabic and Yiddish to explore the traditional themes of Tisha B’Av – destruction and rebuilding, cruelty and compassion, despair and hope – and their significance to today’s most pressing issues.

Admission

Tickets are available for $25 per person

OR $40 for two people with the Tsuzammen ticket

Participants in the special workshop and jam with Zoë and Yonatan earlier in the day (3-6pm) can get $5 off their concert ticket when they register (registration for the workshops is free of charge). This is an amazing chance to learn from highly regarded teachers and artists.

About the Performers

Zoë Aqua was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. She played Suzuki violin while her dad led songs at their local synagogue, and klezmer music on weekends. Aqua's love of old klezmer recordings and fascination with Eastern European music was stoked by her time living in Brooklyn amid a generous and progressive Jewish community. She co-founded two klezmer bands, Tsibele and Farnakht, and was the full-time understudy for the Klezmatics’ Lisa Gutkin in the Broadway production of Indecent.

Aqua has performed at Philadelphia Folk Festival, Klezkanada Festival, Yiddish New York Festival and has toured in Germany, Austria, France, Hungary, Romania, and Turkey. Her 2025 album In the Sea of Stars, recorded in collaboration with three musicians from the folk revival scene in Cluj, was released on June 27 and is the culmination of a two year Fulbright-funded research project doing ethnographic research in Romania on Transylvanian folk music.

Yonatan Kunda is a poet, rapper, playwright, and teacher. He is the founding member of the renowned Arabic-Hebrew-Russian Rap ensemble System Ali. Kunda has published three award-winning poetry books and several original plays for theatre. His poetry has been translated into Arabic, English, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Greek. A teacher of poetry, spoken-word, and Jewish scripture, he has worked and taught in diverse communities throughout Israel and abroad, including leading bi-lingual Hebrew-Arabic poetry programs for Palestinian and Israeli youth.

Daniel Kunda Thagard is a multi-instrumentalist, deeply involved in the revival of the tsimbl, or Yiddish hammered dulcimer, and contributing to the preservation and rejuvenation of traditional Jewish music and its co-territorial styles. He performs regularly in Montreal with the klezmer band Yene Velt and the Greek Smyrnaiko band Toumbeki. He has performed at KlezKanada, Yiddish New York, and in simkhes, cafes, and punk houses around the world.

In addition to performing, Daniel is a software developer and a founding member of the Klezmer Archive Project, an initiative dedicated to making klezmer source materials available online for performers, learners, and researchers, and safeguarding the rich heritage of klezmer music. In December 2024, he released the EP Titunshnayder Duo with Alex Parke, which reinterprets five tunes from the klezmer clarinetist Titunshnayder's repertoire, bringing their own contemporary twist to his unique style.