SPARKS OF GLORY, MOR'S MUSICAL WITNESS SERIES, STIRS POWERFUL EMOTIONS IN NEWCOMERS TO CHAMBER MUSIC

Free Series Returns to Frye Art Museum with Commemoration of Holocaust-Era Music and Musicians

SEATTLE, WA–September 12, 2006–Composers such as Gideon Klein, Hans Krása, Erwin Schulhoff and Viktor Ullmann created strikingly beautiful works-even while imprisoned in the Nazi camps where they ultimately perished. For too long, these composers have failed to receive the attention they deserve, but Music of Remembrance (MOR) is changing that. At the first program in its Sparks of Glory series this season, anyone who stops by the Frye Art Museum on Saturday, October 14, can listen to, and learn about, this "lost" music at no cost.

The first, free-to-the-public Sparks of Glory series at the Frye last season drew raves from attendees, over half of whom had never been to a mainstage MOR concert at Benaroya Hall: "Many thanks for this wonderful event which combines historical knowledge with memorable, lyrical music. You've broadened my horizon!" wrote one new fan.

"The music of these artists is a potent legacy-art speaking out against inhumanity, celebrating beauty, weeping at incalculable loss," says MOR Artistic Director Mina Miller, an authority on the music of the Holocaust. "When I explain to people that this piece, the one they've just heard, was written by someone literally facing death in a Nazi concentration camp-the reaction is powerful."

The Sparks of Glory series will be hosted by the Frye Art Museum on three Saturday afternoons this season (see programs following). In each 90-minute concert, Miller shares her insights on the works performed, including a brief history of the composer and context for its creation. The players, drawn largely from the Seattle Symphony and Seattle's leading chamber groups, provide a level of musicianship to match the works' intensity. The concerts-with-commentary are offered for free because of MOR's mission to ensure the message in this music is heard by the widest possible audience; the Frye's own free admission policy and its intimate, 140-seat auditorium make it a uniquely collaborative partner for MOR.

The October 14 program features a mixture of vocal and instrumental music by Klein, Krása, Ullmann and Schulhoff, and also by Ilse Weber and Carlo Taube. Many of these works were composed in Terezín (Theresienstadt), the concentration camp outside Prague. The haunting chamber music, and songs in Yiddish and German, communicate an extraordinary range of emotions-nostalgia, hope, despair-from Terezín life. The Nazis cynically highlighted Terezín in their propaganda, to deceive the International Red Cross and the rest of the outside world. In reality, virtually all inmates who survived Terezín's harsh conditions were fated for transport to death camps.

While contributing to the rediscovery of artists whose work was stifled by censorship, exile, or ended by death, MOR also presents contemporary musical responses. In the second program, January 27, American composers Lori Laitman and David Schiff evoke the rich heritage of pre-war Europe's Jewish life in a program titled, A Vanished World. Schiff's Divertimento from Gimpel the Fool summons images from Isaac Bashevis Singer's tale of communal life in an Eastern European Jewish shtetl. Laitman's song cycle, The Seed of Dream, commissioned by MOR for baritone Erich Parce, is based on the poetry of Abraham Sutzkever, an escapee from the Vilna Ghetto and resistance fighter.

In the third and final program on April 14, the emotional life of Terezin's child prisoners is expressed through words and music. Six guest vocalists (including rising star baritone Morgan Smith) join their talents to present excerpts from Hans Krása's children's opera Brundibár (its two MOR performances last May were sold out), and Lori Laitman's song cycle "I Never Saw Another Butterfly," based on poetry by the children of Terezín, including the poem by Pavel Friedman (murdered at Auschwitz at age 23) from which the cycle takes its name.

Free tickets are available from the museum's concierge desk, starting at noon on the day of the performance. Patrons are encouraged to arrive early because these free concerts do fill up. The Frye Art Museum is located at 704 Terry Avenue, on First Hill. Free parking is available in the Frye's lot.

Press Queries: Mina Miller
Phone: 206-365-7770
Email: info@musicofremembrance.org
General Queries/Tickets: 206-365-7770

Sparks of Glory: 2006-07 Programs

Spirit Unconquered
Saturday, October 14, 2006 2:30 pm

Songs from Terezín
Ilse Weber: "I Wander Through Theresienstadt" (1943)
Carlo Taube: "Ein Judische Kind" (1942)
Gideon Klein: Wiegenlied (1942)
Viktor Ullmann: Brezulinka (1944)

Instrumental works:
Hans Krása: Theme with Variations (1942)
Erwin Schulhoff: Five Pieces for String Quartet (1923)

Mikhail Shmidt and Leonid Keylin, violin; Susan Gulkis Assadi, viola; Mara Finkelstein, cello; Julie Mirel, mezzo-soprano; Mina Miller, piano

A Vanished World
Saturday, January 27, 2007, 2:30 pm

David Schiff: Divertimento from Gimpel the Fool (1982/85)
Lori Laitman: The Seed of Dream (2004, commissioned by Music of Remembrance)

Judith Cohen, piano; Laura DeLuca, clarinet; Mara Finkelstein, cello; Mina Miller, piano; Erich Parce, baritone; Jeannie Wells Yablonsky, violin; Amos Yang, cello.

The Butterfly Legacy: Terezin's Children
Saturday, April 14, 2007, 2:30 pm

Lori Laitman: I Never Saw Another Butterfly (1995-96)

Hans Krása: Excerpts from Brundibár (Terezin, 1943)

Holly Boaz, soprano; Laura DeLuca, clarinet; Ross Hauck, tenor; Auston James, tenor; Mina Miller, piano; Signe Mortensen, soprano; Malya Muth, soprano; Morgan Smith, baritone.