- Jan 31, 2020
Music of Remembrance brings Violins of Hope for a special concert at Seattle’s Benaroya Hall
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 31, 2020
Contact: Mina Miller, Artistic Director; Steve Griggs, Administrator
(206) 365-7770
info@musicofremembrance.org
www.musicofremembrance.org
Music of Remembrance brings Violins of Hope for a special concert at Seattle’s Benaroya Hall
SEATTLE, WA—On Sunday, March 1, 2020 at 5:30 p.m., Music of Remembrance (MOR) presents a chamber music concert at Seattle’s Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall featuring the historic Holocaust-era Violins of Hope instruments. This special program is part of the organization’s year-long observance of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Tickets are $55 and available at www.musicofremembrance.org.
The Violins of Hope are a unique private collection of string instruments that belonged to Jews who played them before and during the Holocaust. Lovingly restored by Israeli violin makers Amnon and Avshalom Weinstein, they now sing again even though their former owners were silenced. They help keep history alive and connect us to inspiring and intimate human stories.
In a special concert, Music of Remembrance’s core ensemble will perform using a quartet of these historic Violins of Hope instruments in a program that features music by composers lost to the Holocaust: David Beigelman’s haunting Dybbuk Dances; string trios composed in the Terezín concentration camp by Gideon Klein and Hans Krása; and a quartet by Erwin Schulhoff. We also perform the Aria by Miecyslaw Weinberg, who suffered persecution at both Nazi and Soviet hands, and contemporary Israeli composer Betty Olivero’s dazzling klezmer-infused suite from her music to the classic 1920 silent film The Golem. These musical treasures remain as a testament to inspiring courage and resilience in a time of unfathomable horrors. They tell stories that resonate today as strongly as ever.
Bringing the instruments to Seattle for this concert was made possible through MOR’s partnership with Music at Kohl Mansion (Burlingame, CA), which is hosting a multi-week Violins of Hope residency in the Bay Area.
About the Music of Remembrance ensemble
MOR’s core artists are members of the Seattle Symphony: clarinetist Laura DeLuca, violinists Mikhail Shmidt, Natasha Bazhanov and Artur Girsky, violist Susan Gulkis Assadi, and cellist Walter Gray. These artists can also be heard on MOR’s eight commercial audio recordings for Naxos.
About Music of Remembrance
Now in its 22nd year, MOR remembers the Holocaust through music and honors the resilience of all people excluded or persecuted for their faith, nationality, ethnicity, gender or sexuality. In addition to rediscovering and performing music from the Holocaust, MOR has commissioned and premiered more than 30 new works by some of today’s leading composers, drawing on the Holocaust’s lessons to address urgent questions for our own time.
Miecyslaw Weinberg
Aria, op. 9 (1942)
Mikhail Shmidt violin, Natasha Bazhanov violin, Susan Gulkis Assadi viola, Walter Gray cello
Hans Krása
Dance (Terezín, 1943)
Mikhail Shmidt violin, Susan Gulkis Assadi viola, Walter Gray cello
David Beigelman
Dybbuk Dances (Lodz, 1925)
Artur Girsky violin, Natasha Bazhanov violin
Erwin Schulhoff
Five Pieces for String Quartet (1923)
Mikhail Shmidt violin, Natasha Bazhanov violin, Susan Gulkis Assadi viola, Walter Gray cello
Gideon Klein
String Trio (Terezín, 1944)
Mikhail Shmidt violin, Susan Gulkis Assadi viola, Walter Gray cello
Betty Olivero
Zeks Yiddishe Lider un Tantz from The Golem (1997)
Laura DeLuca clarinet, Mikhail Shmidt violin, Artur Girsky violin, Susan Gulkis Assadi viola, Walter Gray cello
Publication Date
Fri, 2020-01-31 12:00