Lenka lichtenberg
ABOUT LENKA
Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, Lenka performed in musical theatre since childhood and studied classical music at Prague Music Conservatory. Escaping the Communist regime, Lenka arrived in Vancouver, B.C., as a landed immigrant. She received her B.Ed. (University of British Columbia) and Master’s Degree in Ethnomusicology (York University), and taught music at the Toronto Metropolitan University (1997-2005) while raising three children.
Lenka tours internationally. Since 2023, she has performed in Copenhagen, Montreal, Prague, Madrid, Sao Paolo, Buenos Aires, Edinburgh Fringe, Theresienstadt, Taipei, Sydney, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C., and brought her solo show The Secret Poetess of Terezin to Calgary’s National Music Centre and Ottawa’s National Arts Centre.
Lenka’s albums won two Canadian Folk Music Awards. Her Czech-language album Thieves of Dreams won the 2023 JUNO Award for Global Music Album of the Year. It is based on notebooks written by her grandmother in the concentration camp Theresienstadt during WW2. The album brought Lenka’s work media attention in Canada and abroad, including an interview on CBC’s Q and BBC in London. Her 2024 album Feel With Blood: Echoes of Theresienstadt further explores and expands this source material in English.
Since 2020, Lenka has lived on a farm in Eastern Ontario with her husband and two lovable rescue dogs. She grows vegetables or tours, and she loves her time as a service leader at Congregation Darchei Noam.
