“And until all of humanity, without exception, undergoes a metamorphosis, wars will continue to be waged, and everything that has been carefully built up, cultivated and grown will be cut down and destroyed, only to start all over again!”
—Anne Frank, May 3, 1944

Through music, Music of Remembrance strives to broaden everyone's understanding of the Holocaust's many dimensions. Over our first nine seasons, our programs have sought to represent the diversity of the Holocaust's victims, featuring the voices of women, children, non-Jewish political dissidents, gypsies and homosexuals. During our tenth season we offer music illuminating Yiddish culture.

The Nazis aimed not only to destroy entire peoples, but also to eradicate any living traces of their culture -- in both the communal and artistic senses. Before the Second World War, Yiddish culture was a vibrant part of Jewish life in Europe. The language provided a bond for Jewish people across boundaries of nationality, social class and religious orthodoxy. It was a language of literature (both popular and serious), journalism, education, politics and music. Yiddish theater offered everything from folk plays about Jewish life to King Lear and Hamlet. While the Yiddish language has survived, that world has vanished.

At our 10th Season Gala Concert on Sunday, November 4, we reprise Thomas Pasatieri's Letter to Warsaw. His song cycle is based on six texts that the poet/cabaret artist Pola Braun wrote while in the Warsaw ghetto and the Majdanek concentration camp. We also perform the world premiere of Gerard Schwarz's Rudolf and Jeanette, commissioned by MOR.

On May 12, 2008, we present the world premiere of Paul Schoenfield's Ghetto Songs, based on poems by Mordecai Gebirtig that span the period from the beginning of the German invasion of Poland to the poet's final days in the Krakow ghetto. This powerful work, commissioned by Music of Remembrance, offers a haunting portrait of shtetl life in Eastern Europe. The program also features the Northwest Boychoir performing Yiddish songs arranged by the Czech composer Viktor Ullmann in the Terezin concentration camp.

Through moving music, children's voices, and the poignant artistry of our musicians, these works tell stories that need to be heard today. Through the emotion and spirit that could not be silenced, we can share in the power of music to move us from the depths of human suffering to the healing beauty of hope and renewal.