This superlative documentary from accomplished film maker John Sharify, a six-time winner of the coveted National Edward R. Murrow Award, chronicles the first decade of Music of Remembrance. UNSILENCED casts light not only on the way MOR rediscovers Holocaust-era music, but on its path-breaking work commissioning new music from some of today's leading composers.
 

The documentary tells the story of MOR's founding in 1998, by concert pianist Mina Miller, and explores its mission to ensure that the musical witnesses to the Holocaust are heard. MOR's musical repertoire is made up of works by musicians whose compositions the Nazis labeled "degenerate" and were imprisoned, often killed. Due to that censorship and the Holocaust's colossal cultural disruption, their music has often only recently been rediscovered.

 

In the spirit of preserving the memory of those lost, MOR also commisions new musical works. UNSILENCED explores the way in which MOR uses commissions to build bridges to the past. Acclaimed American opera composer Jake Heggie wrote For a Look or a Touch (2007) for MOR to tell the true story of two gay teenage lovers the Nazis separated forever. Lori Laitman's The Seed of Dream (2004) is based on the poetry of Vilna Ghetto survivor Abraham Sutzkever, while Thomas Pasatieri's Letter to Warsaw (2003) conveys the firsthand experiences of poet/cabaret artist Pola Braun in the Warsaw Ghetto.

American composer Paul Schoenfield has written two works for MOR: Camp Songs (original Polish version 2002/English version 2004), which was a Pulitzer Finalist, and most recently, Ghetto Songs (2008). David Stock has contributed A Vanished World (2000), a tribute to pre-War shtetl life. Seattle Symphony conductor Gerard Schwarz has picked up the composer's pen twice, to warm praise, with In Memoriam (2005), and Rudolf and Jeanette (2007), dedicated to his grandparents, killed in the Holocaust.
                                                                                                               Gerard Schwarz conducts Rudolf & Jeanette

Ron Anders of the Seattle Gay News writes “UNSILENCED touches upon both the personal and the universal, beginning with the emotional and professional journey of Artistic Director Mina Miller, a concert pianist new to Seattle in 1998, whose musicianship and heritage led her to give new life to the work of long-silenced musicians. Her journey took her from printing concert tickets in her home to standing center stage at Benaroya Hall.” A decade after its founding, with over a dozen world premieres, six U.S. premieres, and five recordings, MOR has become one of Seattle's leading musical organizations, with more commissions on the way.