Strewn as it was on relatively infertile ground, the growth of Jewish culture in the shtetls, or ghettos, of Eastern Europe was a remarkable achievement. With religion as the guiding light, denizens of shtetls overcame persecution and poverty for decades to cultivate a unique society.

Andy Starnes, Post-Gazette Cellist Aron Zelkowicz was inspired by Roman Vishniac?s book ?A Vanished World? to create a Jewish Music Festival based on the shtetl culture of Eastern European Jews. The book, at Rodef Shalom Congregation, is opened to photos titled ?An Old Man, Slonim, 1937? at left and ?A Shoemaker, Warsaw, 1937,? on right page. Click photo for larger image. Pittsburgh Jewish & Music Festival Tomorrow: "An Evening of Jewish Song," Mimi Lerner, mezzo- soprano, and Aron Zelkowicz, cello. In conjunction with Music at Rodef Shalom. Rodef Shalom Congregation, Shadyside. Free. April 27: "Klezmer Concertos," Lucas Richman, conductor. JCC Katz Auditorium, Squirrel Hill. $12-15. May 5: "Chamber Music from the Old World," Rodef Shalom. $12-15. Tickets: All concerts begin at 8 p.m.; call 412-394-3353

"This was a culture of poverty and spiritual wealth," says Aron Zelkowicz.

Zelkowicz, a local cellist, is taking a look back into this world through one of its most salient qualities: klezmer music. His inaugural Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival, opening tomorrow, focuses on the influence klezmer had on generations of Jewish composers before and after World War II destroyed shtetl culture.

"We wanted to explore not the Holocaust but the culture that was destroyed before it," Zelkowicz says. "On an individual level and cultural level, this festival celebrates what we had at the beginning of the 20th century." Its theme is "A Vanished World," taken from Roman Vishniac's books of photographs of shtetl culture, which also inspired a composition by local composer David Stock.

"Shtetl life was insular," says Reuben Silver, a Cleveland-based actor who is participating in one of the festival's three concerts. Jews, in effect, had to create their own cultural experiences because of the restrictions imposed upon them.

But those limits couldn't bottle up klezmer music. This infectious folk music of clarinets, fiddles, trumpets, bass -- the music of "Fiddler on the Roof" -- is loosely defined as "the music of the Jews outside of the synagogue," says Silver.

Klezmer bands provided secular entertainment and music for social functions such as weddings. "The music is challenging, but in terms of intonation it is wider and expressive and blue," says Zelkowicz.

Like all folk music, klezmer also has influenced art music. The festival won't include any strictly klezmer pieces, but rather music influenced by the living tradition, both of the past and today. "

The shtetl background is really the touchstone for a lot in contemporary Jewish life," says Silver. "Even for young people generations removed, there are echoes of it."

Zelkowicz, 30, a graduate of the Eastman School of Music and Indiana University, is one of those. He has been enamored of klezmer and Jewish-themed art music, but opportunities to play this music are few and far between. " It occurred to me, why wait? Especially if there are pieces I want to perform." So the son of a Pittsburgh Symphony violist and Opera violinist decided to go all the way, to shoulder the responsibility of a festival. This in addition to his chamber career and auditioning for orchestras.

The flavor of klezmer -- very much alive in the world today on its own -- can be found in art music from Gustav Mahler to Leonard Bernstein. The festival focuses on several lesser-known composers with programs titled "An Evening of Jewish Song," "Klezmer Concertos" and "Chamber Music from the Old World." The chamber orchestra and chamber musicians will be composed of Pittsburgh Symphony musicians. The United Jewish Federation has underwritten some of the costs.

Works by composers including Srul Glick, Ben Steinberg, Osvaldo Golijov, Joel Hoffman, Hans Krasa, Elliot Finkel, Lucas Richman and Stock are linked by a common thread of taking inspiration from Yiddish folk music. The composers happen to be Jewish, but a Jewish "sound" is what put each work on the program.

"In other words, secular works by composers such as Copland or Gershwin or works with only tenuous Jewish contexts are not considered," Zelkowicz writes in a description of the festival. "In this regard, [it] stands apart from every other Jewish music program nationwide."

Stereotyping anything Jewish is admittedly a touchy subject, says Zelkowicz. "It opens a can of worms," he says. The notion of labeling a look or sound for a culture can have catastrophic consequences.

"The Nazis outlawed any composer with any remotely Jewish origins and justified it by calling it Jewish composition," he says. "But Judaism has certain characteristics like any culture; you have to associate Jewish music with the Jewish people." But, he adds, "What is Jewish music is an impossible question to answer."

All of the composers on the three nights of this festival are Jewish, but Zelkowicz says he would have included any writers of any background if their works set Yiddish text or were influenced by such elements as klezmer or the cantorial traditions. "The Jewishness of the composers -- their birth -- is not the primary consideration."

The logo for the festival may give the best answer to the thrust of the issue. The "J" in "Jewish" is represented by a curved shofar -- the ram's horn blown on the Jewish new year of Rosh Hashanah.

"You can't find what makes it Jewish; it just sounds like it," he says.