The 5th Annual San Francisco Leonard Cohen Festival is back at Cafe du Nord and Swedish American Hall to celebrate the icon's words, music, and spirit.

Join San Francisco’s poets, artists, singers and musicians to experience new and old works of poetry and music, classic Cohen songs like “Everybody Knows,” performed by Cohen’s primary collaborator, Sharon Robinson, and lesser-known pieces like “Democracy,” written with the fall of the Berlin Wall and especially relevant today.

(Courtesy of the SF Leonard Cohen Festival)

The three-night festival begins on November 8th with works inspired by, loved by, and left behind by Cohen and performed by the city’s poets, including 2024 Poet Laureate Genny Lim, Alejandro Murguía, Tess Taylor, and Gregory Pond, and local musicians Middle Harbor Songbirds, Ruby Lee Hill, Josh “Yosh” Warren, and the female choir, Conspiracy of Venus.

On November 9th, a night of Cohen classics and little-known gems will be performed by the renowned a cappella male choir and hosts of the festival, Conspiracy of Beards, and ISMAY, a Folk/American music project by Avery Hellman, the granddaughter of Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival founder Warren Hellman. The evening will also feature special guest artists.

The final night, November 10th, SF-born Sharon Robinson—Grammy-winning songwriter, singer, music producer and Cohen’s longtime co-collaborator and back-up singer—presents The Words and the Music: My Time with Leonard Cohen, her multi-media one-woman show that has captivated audiences in the United States and Canada

Be a part of the city’s creative community in rediscovering Leonard Cohen, who continues to provide the soundtrack of our lives.

// Friday November 8 through Sunday, November 10 at the Swedish American Hall and the Café du Nord, 2174 Market Street; tickets at sfleonardcohenfest.com.

The Conspiracy of Beards (COB) and the 2024 San Francisco Leonard Cohen Festival are supported, in part, by a California Small Business COVID-19 Relief Grant, Craig Newmark Philanthropies and Mistler & Associates Private CEO Groups | drmistler.com/results. Additional support is provided by 7x7, City Lights Bookstore & Publishers as well as anonymous donors.