The festival offers four different venues of exciting musical events, creating a true festival for all culture lovers, with musical and vocal performances by Vivaldi, Bach, Theodorakis, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Dvorak, Verdi, Marcello, music from Spain and Peru, Argentina and Brazil and much more. First-class soloists from Israel will participate in the Festival, in addition to a guest singer from Spain, bass-baritone Luis Alberto Fernandez-Llaneza.

Concerts include a unique vocal experience where the audience is the choir in a sing along in the special acoustics of the Kiryat Yearim Church; 12 concerts featuring music from around the world; 6 concerts in the Crypt with the spring flowing through the center of the village, and outdoor concerts that take place around the church, with opera, chamber and instrumental music.

The village of Abu Gosh has important Christian connections. Beginning in the twelfth century, Christians began to identify Abu Gosh as Emmaus, where Jesus appeared after the Resurrection (Luke 24:12-31). They imagined an old caravansary they found by the village spring as the destination of the disciples as they walked along the road “about seven miles from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:13).

The village’s impressive Crusader church, in a tranquil garden setting, is built over that spring. Its walls are adorned with paintings of New Testament figures – some of the oldest medieval frescos in the world.

Abu Gosh has also been identified as Kiriath Jearim, where the Ark of the Covenant was brought after Philistine captivity (1 Sam. 6:21); a church on the hill with a panoramic view marks that spot.

Abu Gosh Festival website: www.agfestival.co.il

Tickets can be purchased at the venue or in advance from +972 3 604-5000

See the event list!