Sparks of Glory: Farewell, Auschwitz

This event was part of our free Sparks of Glory educational series.

SAM’s exhibition “Miró: The Experience of Seeing” offers a fresh assessment of the late period of the artist’s work. It has been said that Miró’s rich, mature style evolved from the tension between his fanciful poetic impulse and his vision of the harshness of modern life. Today’s concert reflects Miró’s remarkable insight on visual art, poetry, and music: “I try to apply colors like words that shape poems, like notes that shape music.” American composer Lori Laitman’s I Never Saw Another Butterfly and Vedem are based on the verses of young prisoners in the Terezín concentration camp, and The Seed of Dream sets poetry that Abraham Sutzkever wrote in the Vilna Ghetto before he escaped and became a resistance fighter. Farewell, Auschwitz is Jake Heggie’s musical setting of Krystyna Zywulska’s poems that circulated secretly in Auschwitz and became anthems of resistance among her fellow prisoners.

*Encore performances of this free-concert-with-commentary:

• Wednesday, April 23 at 7:30 p.m. at the Mercer Island Congregational Church
  4545 Island Crest Way
  Mercer Island, WA 98040
• Friday, April 25 at 7:00 p.m. at Grace Church on Bainbridge Island.
  8595 NE Day Rd
  Bainbridge Island, WA 98110