Music of Remembrance - Remembering Holocaust Musicians

> David Stock

David Stock: Arrangement of Alberstein's "Mayn Shvester Khaye" (2008)
Commissioned by Music of Remembrance

World premiere: May 12, 2008, Benaroya Hall, Seattle, WA, at Music of Remembrance's Holocaust Remembrance Day concert.

David Stock's second commission for Music of Remembrance is an arrangement of a song by the immensely popular (with over 40 albums in Hebrew, six in Yiddish) Israeli singer Chava Alberstein. Born in Szczecin, Poland, Alberstein grew up hearing Yiddish; her family moved to Israel when she was only four years old. She knew the poet who wrote "Mayn Shvester Khaye," fellow Pole Binem Heller (1906-1998), personally. He wrote the poem for his sister Khaye, who died in Treblinka. As a child herself, she looked after Heller and his brothers while their mother worked. He wrote in Yiddish, his mother-tongue. Stock's arrangement is for mezzo-soprano, clarinet, and string quartet, and was made possible by a generous gift from Rabbi James Mirel.

David Stock: A Vanished World (1999)
Commissioned by Music of Remembrance

World premiere: April 30, 2000, Benaroya Hall, Seattle, WA at Music of Remembrance’s Holocaust Remembrance Day concert.

Recording: A Vanished World is available on the MOR CD, Art from Ashes, Vol. 1 (Innova), performed by Jody Schwarz, flute; Susan Gulkis Assadi, viola; and Valerie Muzzolini, harp.

David Stock offers the following remarks:

Over the last decade and a half, I have written several works with explicitly Jewish content, including Yerusha (clarinet and chamber ensemble), A Little Miracle (mezzo-soprano and chamber orchestra), and Third Symphony (Tikkun Olam). Each of these pieces is built from Jewish material- both musical and conceptual, some invented and some quoted. Thus it was a real challenge when Music of Remembrance commissioned me to write a Holocaust-related work. My starting point was the old tune "Shalom Aleichem," which is quoted in full in the middle of the piece. This led to other tunes through association; again, some are "real," some invented.

What eventually emerged was a kind of aural snapshot of the pre-war world of East European Jewry, living on the edge of the abyss. The music is frequently interrupted by instrumental screams -- perhaps warnings of what is to come?

The title comes from a famous book by Roman Vishniac: a photographic and literary depiction of that same Jewish world, now kept alive only in memory and memento.

The score was completed in August 1999, in Santa Fe, NM, and is dedicated to Mina Miller, founder of this remarkable series. The work was written especially for three wonderful musicians: Jody Schwarz, Susan Gulkis, and Heidi Lehwalder.

David Stock (b. 1939, Pittsburgh)

David Stock, composer and conductor, has been a former Composer-in-Residence of the Seattle Symphony and Pittsburgh Symphony. Professor of Music at Duquesne University, where he conducts the Duquesne Contemporary Ensemble, he is Conductor Laureate of the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, which he founded in 1976. A founding member of MOR's Advisory Board, among Stock's many commissions are two for MOR: 1999's A Vanished World, given its premiere by MOR in 2000, and his 2008 arrangement of the Chava Alberstein song, "Mayn Shvester Khaye," given its premiere the same year. A Guggenheim Fellowship winner, along with five Fellowship Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, he has appeared worldwide as a guest conductor: with Australia's Seymour Group, Poland's Capella Cracoviensis and Silesian Philharmonic, Mexico's Foro Internacional de Música Nueva, and Eclipse (Beijing); and across the country: with Pittsburgh Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, Syracuse Society for New Music, Minnesota Composers Forum, American Dance Festival, New England Conservatory Contemporary Ensemble, and the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, among others. Stock's compositions have been performed throughout the United States and in Europe, Mexico, Australia, China and Korea. He has recorded on CRI, Innova, Northeastern, MMC, Ocean, and Ambassador. His television credits include the theme music for the PBS series Kennedy Center Tonight.

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