Eleanor Dubinsky and Steve Zwolak go way back to the days when she was a camper and he was a counselor at Camp Pegnita in Kirkwood. Dubinsky doesn’t remember knowing him there, but she recalls the indelible impact he had on her brother, Frank, when Zwolak was his nursery school teacher at Community School.

“He was this magical person,” Dubinsky, 42, said, when she called Monday from Prague (though her permanent home is New York). “Steve has this incredible talent and connection with kids.”

Now an acclaimed professional musician  with three albums, Dubinsky reconnected with Zwolak through Facebook, and then they met in St. Louis a year ago out of mutual interests. Zwolak, the longtime executive director of the University City Children’s Center (UCCC), a progressive early childhood center, was planning the organization’s annual fundraising concert and gala.

“[H]e was interested in my music and I think the message of my music was consistent with what they are doing at UCCC,” Dubinsky said. “We had a meeting and out of that meeting came this idea for me to perform at their benefit event.”

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Dubinsky will return home to perform at the Aug. 9 fundraiser, “Fairy Tales Can Come True,” which benefits the UCCC’s Tuition Assistance Fund. She will be featured with two members of her New York-based band and two members of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.

When asked to describe her music, she said, “I think it addresses human challenges, personal and political, and offers a message of hope. Sort of like when things are tough, there is some sense of hope and peace that can be found.”

Dubinsky grew up in University City and celebrated her bat mitzvah at Central Reform Congregation. She began studying classical cello at age 3. She sang with her high school jazz band (at John Burroughs School), majored in philosophy of education at Brown University — specifically the relationship between performing arts and social change — and then immersed herself in contemporary dance. 

But she was always involved with music. After seven or eight years in the dance field, she went back to playing music and writing songs, which she calls her “first artistic language.”

“There is a more immediate connection for me, and I think for audiences,” she said.

Speaking of language, Dubinsky is fluent in several and composes in English, Spanish and French. If she had to classify her genre, it would be singer-songwriter, but she seems to have found the sweet spot where jazz, world music and pop sensibilities meet emotionally authentic songwriting. Her vocals are as soothing as warm honey, invigorated by Latin, Brazilian, American and West- African rhythms.  

Dubinsky hopes that after hearing her music, the audience at the benefit will feel inspired. “I want them to leave clapping their hands and feeling joyous. I want them to also feel similar to the mission of UCCC — communities coming together to create something really amazing. I hope my music has that effect.”

For information about the “Fairy Tales Can Come True” concert and gala, go to www.uccc.org/fairytales or call 314-726-0148. To hear a track from Dubinsky’s new album, “Soft Spot of My Heart,” see below.

 Mini movie reviews

Typically, the Light reviews most new movies with Jewish themes or overtones when they open in St. Louis. Sometimes, though, a few slip by. Two really good ones, “RBG” and “Three Identical Strangers,” both documentaries, are now playing locally at Landmarks Plaza Frontenac and Tivoli theaters.

“RBG” probably needs no introduction; the initials stand for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court justice. Through the use of archival footage and interviews, the documentary provides insights and many candid moments as it chronicles Ginsburg’s trajectory from shy, whip-smart Brooklyn daughter of Russian-Jewish immigrants, to being one of nine women in a class of more than 500 at Harvard Law School in the mid-1950s, to her appointment to the Supreme Court in 1993 and beyond. Along the way we come to see Ginsburg as a trailblazer for feminism and women’s rights.

The film, by Betsy West and Julie Cohen, also provides an intimate look at Ginsburg’s life away from the bench. We see her diligently exercising, at age 83 (when the film was made) with her personal trainer, kibitzing with her granddaughter and delighting in a lifelong love affair with her husband, Marty Ginsburg, a renowned tax attorney. From the moment they met in college, he supported her in pursuit of her passions, despite the many obstacles in her path.

“RBG” is a fascinating, informative and often humorous look at the life of a remarkable woman who despite her diminutive stature, forcefully advocates for justice and equality for all.

While “Three Identical Strangers” tells a bizarre and distressing story, it still is deserving of your time. Three identical male triplets — astonishing in and of itself — are separated at birth; each is adopted by a different Jewish family in the greater New York area. As teens, two of the boys find each other, after they wind up attending the same community college. When a newspaper runs a story about their discovery, the third boy realizes he’s part of the group.

It isn’t long before the triplets learn they have all sorts of things in common, forge a close bond and quickly become media darlings. But their amazing revelation soon grows dark. At the heart of this stirring, albeit unsettling documentary is a Jewish-run adoption agency that helped facilitate the separation of the triplets — and other identical siblings, without the knowledge of their adoptive parents — so that researchers could study the effects of nature vs. nurture.

As not to give too much away the less said about “Three Identical Strangers” the better, other than to recommend seeing it.