COMPOSER PAUL SCHOENFIELD TO PERFORM WORLD PREMIERE OF HIS GHETTO SONGS WITH MUSIC OF REMEMBRANCE

Concert Brings Parade of Top Musicians and Vocalists, the Northwest Boychoir-and ACT's Kurt Beattie

SEATTLE, WA-Paul Schoenfield was a pianist before turning composer; on Monday, May 12, 2008, he will play both roles at Seattle's Benaroya Hall. Schoenfield will be interviewed by Bob Goldfarb for a Meet the Composer pre-concert talk, then take a seat at the keyboard for the world premiere of his composition Ghetto Songs. It is his second commission from Music of Remembrance; his earlier Camp Songs was a 2003 Pulitzer Prize Finalist.

"We had planned for Paul to record the work with us," said MOR Artistic Director Mina Miller, "he just wasn't sure if his teaching schedule would leave him time to attend Seattle rehearsals. It's wonderful that it has worked out-having Paul at the keyboard for the world premiere makes a momentous evening even more unforgettable."

MOR is a Seattle chamber music organization dedicated to performing music from or about the Holocaust era. Schoenfield's Ghetto Songs draws on the poetry of Mordecai Gebirtig, a carpenter and folk singer who was known throughout Poland as the "Yiddish troubadour." Deported to the Krakow Ghetto, he was shot to death at age 65.

MOR has a reputation for attracting some of the top chamber musicians in Seattle, many of whom perform with the Seattle Symphony or Northwest Sinfonietta. For this concert, Mikhail Shmidt, Leonid Keylin, Susan Gulkis Assadi, Mara Finkelstein, Scott Goff, Jonathan Green, Laura DeLuca, Mina Miller, and TownMusic artistic director Joshua Roman will take the stage. But the program includes a host of leading Northwest vocalists as well as musicians.

Seattle's Morgan Smith, baritone, and Portland's Angela Niederloh, mezzo soprano, will sing Schoenfield's work, while A Contemporary Theatre's artistic director Kurt Beattie provides narration. Niederloh, who shone in the title role of Portland Opera's recent Cinderella, will be making her debut with Music of Remembrance. Smith is the star of MOR's recording of Jake Heggie's For a Look or a Touch, out on the Naxos label on April 29, 2008.

Bellevue teen Marié Rossano, 2008 winner of MOR's David Tonkonogui Memorial Award, will begin the concert with Ernest Bloch's Nigun. The young violinist also won a cash award of $500 to support her musical studies, which she began at 3-1/2 years of age. One of the Seattle Chamber Music Society's Emerging Artists, Rossano made her debut with Seattle Symphony in October 2007.

Seattle mezzo soprano Julie Mirel is the vocalist for the world premiere of an arrangement by American composer David Stock. Stock's chamber music version of Chava Alberstein's song "Mayn Shvester Chaya" evokes a Poland that lives on only in a second, cultural life, thanks to the Yiddish poetry of Binem Heller, who died in 1998. Stock's arrangement is written for voice, clarinet, and string quartet.

The list of guest vocalists concludes with the Northwest Boychoir, led by Joseph Crnko, performing Yiddish choral music arranged by Viktor Ullmann, the composer of the opera The Emperor of Atlantis. While imprisoned in the Nazi "model" concentration camp Terezín from 1942 to 1944, Ullmann produced over sixteen compositions. Sent to Auschwitz in October 1944, he was killed in the gas chambers there.

Ray of Sunshine
Monday, May 12, 2008; 7:30 p.m.
Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall
Tickets: $36 at the door
In advance: (206) 365-7770 or online at:
www.musicofremembrance.org

6:45 p.m. Meet the Composer: Bob Goldfarb interviews Paul Schoenfield

Egon Ledec (United States Premieres)
Andante (1940)
Mikhail Shmidt, violin; Leonid Keylin, violin; Susan Gulkis Assadi, viola; Mara Finkelstein, cello
Serenade (1942)
Kyticka (1942)
Leonid Keylin, violin; Mina Miller, piano

Erwin Schulhoff
Concertino for Flute, Viola and Double bass (1925)
Scott Goff, flute; Susan Gulkis Assadi, viola; Jonathan Green, double bass

Viktor Ullmann (United States Premiere)
Choral Arrangements of Yiddish Songs (Terezín, 1942)
The Northwest Boychoir, led by Joseph Crnko

Chava Alberstein (World Premiere of arrangement by David Stock)
Mayn Shvester Chaya
Julie Mirel, mezzo soprano; Mikhail Shmidt, violin; Leonid Keylin, violin; Susan Gulkis Assadi, viola; Mara Finkelstein, cello; Laura DeLuca, clarinet

Paul Schoenfield (World Premiere! Music of Remembrance Commission)
Ghetto Songs (2008)
Morgan Smith, baritone; Angela Niederloh, mezzo soprano; Mikhail Shmidt, violin; Laura DeLuca, clarinet; Joshua Roman, cello; Jonathan Green, double bass; Paul Schoenfield, piano; Kurt Beattie, narrator

About Music of Remembrance:
Music of Remembrance (MOR) fills a unique spiritual and cultural role in Seattle and throughout the United States by remembering Holocaust musicians and their art through musical performances, educational activities, musical recordings and commissions of new works. Since its 1998-99 inaugural year, MOR has presented two major concerts annually at Seattle's Benaroya Hall, marking the anniversary of Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) each fall and Holocaust Remembrance Day each spring. More information is available at www.musicofremembrance.org.