SEATTLE, WA—October 9, 2009—Music of Remembrance’s twelfth season begins on November 9, 2009, at the Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall in Seattle’s Benaroya Hall. The program features two contemporary works: acclaimed American composer Paul Schoenfield’s inspiring Sparks of Glory, and Cantillations by Israeli-born Ofer Ben-Amots. It also highlights Yiddish art songs by Lazar Weiner, and chamber music by three murdered Holocaust-era composers: Czech composer Pavel Haas, and the less-known murdered Hungarian composers Sándor Vándor and László Weiner.  

 

Schoenfield’s Sparks of Glory is based on the Holocaust reports of Polish-Israeli journalist Moshe Prager, who presciently recorded Jewish acts of resistance and courage in his notebook. Erich Parce is the narrator for the piano quartet with violin, cello, and clarinet. (Schoenfield will attend the concert, and discuss his work in a pre-concert interview with Gigi Yellen.) Ben-Amots’soulful Cantillations blends Judaica and the cantorial style of Berlin-Frankfurt chant with contemporary effects, and pays tribute to the traditions of one of Europe’s most vibrant pre-war Jewish communities. Pavel Haas, considered the most gifted student of Leoš Janáček, was a leader in the extraordinary musical life and resistance at the Terezín concentration camp. His String Quartet No. 1, written years before his imprisonment, demonstrates an astonishing technical mastery of counterpoint. The program also honors the musical legacies of two Hungarian composers who perished in Nazi labor camps: Sándor Vándor’s impressionistic Air for cello and piano, and László Weiner’s sparkling Duo for violin and viola. 

 

Lazar Weiner, a pioneer of the Yiddish art song, emigrated to the U.S. in 1914 to escape the anti-Semitism of the Russian Pale. Megan Hart, a Seattle Opera Young Artist, will perform Weiner’s Shtiler tener (Hushed Tones), and his Dos gold fun dayne oygn (The Gold in Your Eyes) with its elements of Eastern European Jewish folksong.  She will also sing Unter dayne vayse shtern (Under Your White Stars), based on the 1943 Vilna Ghetto poem by the great Yiddish poet Abraham Sutzkever.

 

The concert coincides with the release of Music of Remembrance’s new Naxos CD, containing works by Paul Schoenfield and Gerard Schwarz. Schoenfield will also be available in the lobby for CD signing. (The disk includes three MOR commissions: Schoenfield’s Camp Songs and Ghetto Songs, and Gerard Schwarz’s Rudolf and Jeanette, a chamber orchestra work evoking the life and love of the composer’s Viennese grandparents, who were killed by the Nazis.

Single Tickets: $36

Phone Orders: 206-365-7770
Fax Orders: 206-985-6924
Online Orders: www.musicofremembrance.org

Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall, Seattle

7:30 p.m., Monday, November 9, 2009

 

6:45 p.m. Meet the Composer:Gigi Yellen interviews Paul Schoenfield

 

Cantillations (1997)

Laura DeLuca, clarinet; Mara Finkelstein, cello

 

String Quartet No. 1, Op. 3 (1920)

Mikhail Shmidt, violin; Leonid Keylin, violin; Susan Gulkis Assadi, viola; Mara Finkelstein cello

 

Walter Gray, cello; Mina Miller, piano

 

Duo (1939)

Mikhail Shmidt, violin; Susan Gulkis Assadi, viola

 

Shtile Tener (Hushed Tones) (1918)

Dos Gold Fun Dayne Oygn (The Gold in Your Eyes) (1922)

Unter Dayne Vayse Shtern (Under Your White Stars) (1950)

Megan Hart, soprano; Mina Miller, piano

 

Sparks of Glory (1995)

Mikhail Shmidt, violin; Laura DeLuca, clarinet; Walter Gray, cello; Mark Salman, piano; Erich Parce, narrator