Concentration Camp Composers' Artistic Resistance Fuels Music Of Remembrance's Free January Concert

Israeli Composer Betty Olivero's Dance Suite Recalls Tales of Prague Golem

SEATTLE, WA-December 10, 2007 - Seattle's Music of Remembrance [MOR] presents the second program in its Sparks of Glory outreach series, the concert-with-commentary Legacy, at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, January 19, 2008. Free thanks to sponsorship by Chamber Music America and the National Endowment for the Arts, the performance takes place on Capitol Hill at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, which offers free parking for visitors.

"The title, Legacy," MOR's artistic director, Mina Miller, explained, "is tied to our mission to ensure these powerful voices are heard. This legacy is historical, political, and cultural. It's provocative, nostalgic, angry, grieving, and life-loving. This music is for everybody-not just those who love chamber music concerts, but anyone who has ever felt music speak to them."

The Saturday afternoon concert begins at 2:30 p.m., and includes commentary from Mina Miller, who is also an international speaker on musicians' spiritual resistance during the Holocaust, and performances by some of Seattle's leading chamber musicians. Works by two Czech composers Hans Krása and Pavel Haas, are highlighted. Miller's commentary will describe how Terezín, the "model" concentration camp where they were inmates, was used in Nazi propaganda efforts to deceive the world about their treatment of Jews-and yet was a remarkable center of spiritual resistance through artistic creation.

MOR's focus is on the cultural legacy created by musicians during the Holocaust, and SAAM's exhibitions create rich, unexpected associations with MOR's repertoire. Haas' Four Songs on Chinese Poetry, sung by popular Seattle baritone Erich Parce, opens up a conversation with SAAM's extensive Chinese art collection. An audience member at MOR's September 29 concert wrote to applaud the "excellent coordination concept with SAAM and MOR. I look forward to future MOR programs and am now more interested in SAAM exhibitions."

Israeli composer Betty Olivero's klezmer-like suite of dances from The Golem, her musical score written to accompany the classic 1920 silent film by Paul Wegener, evokes another, earlier legacy. The series of Ashkenazic and Sephardic folk melodies musically suggest the tales of Prague's 16th-century Rabbi Löw, who created a golem (a supernaturally strong clay giant) to protect a Prague ghetto from anti-Semitic attacks.

Sparks of Glory Musical Witness Series
Stimson Auditorium, Seattle Asian Art Museum
1400 East Prospect Street, Volunteer Park
FREE TO THE PUBLIC*

Legacy
January 19, 2008, 2:30 p.m.
Stimson Auditorium, Seattle Asian Art Museum

The Terezín concentration camp was used in Nazi propaganda to deceive the world about conditions in the camps. While nearly all of Terezín's prisoners were eventually transported to death camps, Terezín was a remarkable center of spiritual resistance through artistic creation. Works by two Terezín inmates, the Czech composers Hans Krása and Pavel Haas, are highlighted, with Haas' Four Songs on Chinese Poetry complementing SAAM's extensive Chinese art collection. Also, from Israeli composer Betty Olivero, a klezmer-like dance suite originally written as musical accompaniment for the silent film The Golem.

Hans Krasa: Three Songs

Erich Parce, baritone; Mina Miller, piano; Laura DeLuca, clarinet; Mikhail Shmidt, violin; Leonid Keylin, violin; Susan Gulkis Assadi, viola; Mara Finkelstein, cello

Forbidden!
March 15, 2008, 2:30 p.m.
Stimson Auditorium, Seattle Asian Art Museum

For a Look or a Touch, MOR's 2007 commission from acclaimed American opera composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer, receives a much-demanded second Seattle performance. Declared an instant "masterpiece" by the Seattle P-I, the work is based on the true story of two young, gay German lovers tragically separated by the Nazis. Baritone Morgan Smith performs with actor Julian Patrick.

Jake Heggie: For a Look or a Touch

Morgan Smith, baritone; Julian Patrick, actor; Mina Miller, piano; Laura DeLuca, clarinet; Zart Dombourian-Eby, flute; Mikhail Shmidt, violin; Paige Smith, cello

Timeless April 12, 2008, 2:30 p.m. Stimson Auditorium, Seattle Asian Art Museum

Gideon Klein: Duo for Violin and Cello (1941)

Robert Dauber: Serenata (1942) (Terezin)

Hans Krasa: Scenes from Brundibár: A Children's Opera (Terezin 1943); English language adaptation by Tony Kushner; Erich Parce, stage director

Ross Hauck, Holly Boaz, Malya Muth, Michael Drumheller, Signe Mortensen, Auston James: vocalists; Mina Miller, piano; Julian Schwarz, cello; Jocelyn Chang, violin (winners of the DTMA 2005 and 2006)

*This series is made possible, in part, by funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. Music of Remembrance is the recipient of a Chamber Music America Residency Partnership Program Grant with funding provided by the CMA Residency Endowment Fund.

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 available at www.musicofremembrance.org.