Australian Jewish
Music Festival
About Shir
Shir Madness was Sydney’s much loved Jewish Music Festival from 2010 to 2018. In 2023 we launched as SHIR - Australian Jewish Music Festival.
Our concerts feature a range of Jewish musical styles, presented always by artists who take pride in exploring their Jewishness on stage. SHIR aims to provide a musical tour of the kaleidoscopic Jewish experience, whilst keeping a finger on the pulse of the local and international Jewish community in order to provide, through music, for the community’s needs.
We commit to providing our community with the connection, warmth and empowerment that only music can bring. We are the beating heart of Jewish music and we are excited to be beating again.
Why Music
We are passionate about sustaining a platform dedicated to Jewish music and the celebration of Jewish and Israeli culture that sits apartfrom expressly religious and political spaces.
We also recognise that there is little more universal than music, and we envisage SHIR as amuch-needed gateway for non-Jewish allies and friends to learn about and embrace Jewishand Israeli culture and the lived Jewish experience. We note that this mission acquiresespecial significance and urgency in the midst of the current national antisemitism crisis.
Music is, and always has been, foundational to the Jewish experience. Since October 7th 2023, we in the Jewish community have relied even more heavily on the embrace of music tonavigate our emotions through the darkness. We have found ourselves craving the connection and catharsis that music provides.
Having said that, Jewish music in the diaspora is rarely heard outside of synagogues, simchas and rallies; and there, largely incidentally.
Our Purpose
is fivefold
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To present the highest quality Jewish music in the most elite venues Australia has to offer, to Jewish and non-Jewish audiences.
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To provide a platform for outstanding Jewish artists. This is particularly resonant in the current climate, in which political partisanship and outright hostility have rendered much of the Australian cultural landscape increasingly inhospitable to Jewish audiences and artists alike.
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To bridge the gap between the strong tradition of Jewish Australian arts philanthropy and deserving Jewish Australian artists whose careers would be transformed by opportunities afforded by such philanthropy.
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To reclaim the space for Jews in Australian public and cultural life that has been contracting since October 7th 2023, to which we are entitled, and deserve.
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To provide a vehicle through which the Jewish community can express mutual solidarity in response to local antisemitism and events in Israel.