Renewal is at the heart of music. Each concert is, after all, a revival of music that's been dormant since its last performance. But Wednesday evening, an audience at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill witnessed a particularly special rebirth.

Just a week ago, this building played the role of a funeral home for the final concert of the Y Music Society. Wednesday, it housed a vibrant concert by the Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival. One was a venerable organization that lasted more than 75 years; the other has just hit its fifth season. The audience was modest on this Stanley Cup night, but the programming and performers carried on the quality of the older series.

For someone who was at both concerts, it was a joy to see a stage abound with optimism. Funding will always be tough for director and founder (and cellist) Aron Zelkowicz, as it is for all nonprofits. But if he continues to book talent in the orchestra and soloists as he did in this concert, the festival will remain a success.

This concert, the second of three festival events this season, celebrated the 60th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel with members of the Pittsburgh Symphony, Pittsburgh Opera and local universities. Led by Lucas Richman, the ambitious program did what a festival should -- introduce new repertoire.

Works based on Jewish folk and traditional music, such as Richman's "Overture for Israel," Mordechai Zeira's "Two Israeli Folk Songs" (with soprano Re'ut Ben-Ze'ev) and Paul Ben-Haim's Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra (with an animated Gila Goldstein as solo pianist) were highlights.

Richman's opus was especially striking because it began with Ben-Ze'ev's deliberate singing of "Where shall I go?" She then left the stage while the orchestra continued with a another folk song and the Israeli national anthem. You don't see that every day, not that it detracted from a splendidly orchestrated work.

Noam Sheriff's Violin Concerto No. 2, performed with flair by Nurit Pacht, was the most striking work of the concert. Written in 2000 and subtitled "Commandments," the chamber work is a hodgepodge of styles over five movements (only three played here).

Some of these movements worked, such as the halting yet captivating Recitativo Intermezzo that could have been a conversation between the Israeli and Arab cultures, with Pacht representing the former and the tutti the latter. The finale, however, gave a poor representation of techno music, which is much more varied and compelling than the monotonous eighth-note pulse on drums that Sheriff supplied.

Nothing describes renewal more than kids, and the concert ended with Naomi Shemer's "Jerusalem of Gold," in an arrangement by Samuel Gal Alterovich sung by the Children's Festival Chorus of Pittsburgh. In addition to a clear solo by Bailey Yordnoff, the young singers were on point with intonation and ensemble and lent the popular work a fresh feel.

The final concert of the Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival, "Israeli Songs and Dances," is at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Rodef Shalom Congregation, Shadyside.