Aguas: A Musical Journey

From Buenos Aires, through São Paulo, and into Montreal, join us for a musical journey through waterways.

Saxophone player, improviser and composer, born in a Jewish family in Buenos Aires, Damián Birbrier comes from a family of travelers and immigrants: each generation of the Birbrier family has lived in a different country. In each location, a river has been central to their lives. Aguas – meaning waters – is a musical and visual tribute to his family and its history.

This musical passage finds inspiration in the meaningful bodies of water near which each generation lived and explores the loss and hope that comes with every new location, every new country to call home. The audience will travel from the shores of Kiev’s Dnieper to Buenos Aires’s Rio de la Plata, from São Paulo’s Rio do Peixe to Montreal’s Saint Lawrence. Mixing original photographic works and engravings with instrumental music performances, this large-scale project explores each location through musical storytelling, mixing genres such as jazz, Latin American music, Jewish music, and electroacoustic music.

On March 16, you’re invited to experience the first performance of Aguas. This event is an occasion to share the research, exploration, and development of the first part of Aguas. Birbrier will also share his creative process and the ways in which he has explored and been inspired by the history of his great-grandparents who, in the face of violence, fled from Eastern Europe to South America. A musical performance by Damián Birbrier (saxophone) and Amichai Ben Shalev (bandoneon) will be followed by an open discussion on memory, music, and diaspora. It is his hope that this personal exploration resonates with other members of the Jewish and other communities who might wonder about their own family’s history and journey.

Doors: 7:00pm
Performance: 7:30pm

Beverages will be available for purchase at our bar (payable by card only).

Click here to reserve your free ticket.

This event is a part of the Museum of Jewish Montreal’s Microgrant Program for Creative or Cultural Exploration, which is funded by the Quebec Community Group Network’s Community Innovation Fund. We also thank the Jewish Community Foundation of Montreal (JCF) for their support.

Please note that the upper levels of our building are currently not accessible to visitors with limited mobility. This event will take place on the ground floor.