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April 4, 2003/Nisan 2 5763, Vol. 55, No. 32
Immortal wordsChorale performs Holocaust memorial concert
LEISAH NAMM
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 Members of the Arizona Arts Chorale prepare for the Holocaust Memorial Concert "Songs of Struggle and Hope" during a March 25 rehearsal. Photo by Leisah Namm |
The Arizona Arts Chorale performs "Holocaust Cantata" during its Holocaust Memorial Concert "Songs of Struggle and Hope" at various locations in April (see Details box). The readings and songs, origin-ally in Polish, are based on interview transcripts, poems and historical data from the archives of the United States Holocaust Memorial Mu-seum. Arranger Donald McCullogh compiled the text and Denny Clark wrote English lyrics from the writings. "Holocaust Can-tata" has no plot, but each song and reading represents a different person and a different experience. The piece, which includes nar-ratives introducing each song, premiered March 17, 1998, at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
Nestor Guzman of Scotts-dale, who's been a member of the chorale for three years, introduced the project to the group.
"I always wanted the chorale to reach the Jewish community," he explains. He credits Carolyn Eynon, artistic director of the Arizona Arts Chorale, with discovering the "Holocaust Cantata."
"It was a lot of searching here and there for pieces until finally we found this beautiful, beautiful Cantata," says Guzman, who is also a member of Temple Solel's choir.
"It has been the greatest outreach," Guzman says. "It's totally incredible to me how it has touched and trans-formed the thinking of many people. To me, it's a great vehicle to reach non-Jewish people."
The chorale first performed the piece in front of an audience March 3 during the Bureau of Jewish Education's conference on the Holocaust at Beth El Congregation.
"No one moved, no one blinked," says chorale member Fran Reich, a member of Chabad of Scotts-dale. "There was just an incredible silence. ... It was an amazing interaction be-tween what we were de-livering to them and to how they were receiving it."
Performing "Holocaust Cantata" has had a deep impact on choir members.
When they were presented with the piece, "the whole choir was absolutely sobbing and in tears," says choir member Karen Weekes of Gilbert. "They passed around a box of Kleenex."
Weekes, a practicing Mormon, says the piece has raised her level of under-standing to a higher level than she had before. "I've done reading on it but when you sing about it, it affects you much more deeply," she says.
Every time she sings it, "it gets more emotional because of the reality of the sit-uation," she says. "When you start singing about the kids and the mothers and the real-life situations, it's just absolutely heartbreaking and you wonder how something like that can happen and (how) the world can kind of turn a blind eye to it."
Holocaust survivor Ella Adler, who will speak to audiences at the April 15 and 29 performances, also spoke to choir members during a rehearsal.
"We wanted the choir to have a feeling for the whole piece and what they went through," Guzman says.
When Adler met with the women of the choir to discuss a song about the murders of babies and mothers, Adler told them to think about the women as they're singing it, Weekes says.
"It does definitely make you sing with more feeling, but it makes it twice as hard to sing the song," she says. "You just can't sing when you're crying, but you can't help crying when you're doing the piece. You just can't."
Cantor Mikhal Shiff-Matter of Temple Beth Israel will sing two songs with the choir at the concerts held at the synagogue - one in Hebrew and the other in Yiddish.
The Yiddish song is "Zol Shoyn Kumen Di Ge'Uleh," "Let the Redemption Come," by Shmerke Kaczerginski.
As soon as he was liberated, the composer became in-volved in a musical anthology of songs from the Holocaust, says Shiff-Matter. "It was his way of memorializing all the music makers and all the songs that came out of that experience."
This song became very popular in America, Shiff-Matter says. "(It) was used in many circles, religious and not religious, because it captured this hope and at the same time," the idea of "shouldn't the redemption be coming? How much worse can it get?
"I think it's a song for our time as well."
The other piece Shiff-Matter will sing with the choir is "Ashrei Hagafrur," "Blessed is the Match," written by Hannah Szenes with music by Lawrence Avery.
"(Szenes) was expressing a sense of mission because she was a paratrooper at the end of World War II and a partisan," Shiff-Matter says. "Her poems were snatched up as the symbol of the sacrifice a people make for their country."
Other songs included in the program are "We Remember Them" and the world premiere of "It Is in These Wounds," by Denice Rippentrop, who originally wrote the song for the chorale's Sept. 11 memorial concert. The concert was canceled after the chorale was asked by the Phoenix Symphony to perform in their concert instead.
A performance for children will be held April 15 at Temple Beth Israel (see Details box). Letters were sent out to all Scottsdale public schools as well as to voice teachers at other schools, and Adler will lead a question and answer session with the children, Eynon says.
Ballet Sanctus will dance during part of the Cantata at both Temple Beth Israel performances. The chorale will also perform during a Holocaust memorial service at Temple Emanuel of Tempe (see box) and at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on April 27. The Chorale will be accompanied by Keith Molberg on piano and Ian Ginsburg on cello.
The Arizona Arts Chorale, founded by Eynon in 1995, has performed a var-iety of cultural concerts, in-cluding a Native American sym-phony and Afri-can-American music, singing spirituals, jazz, gospel, as well as songs in Swahili. The 50 members, ages 18-65, are from a variety of religous back-grounds and there are five Jewish members, Eynon says.
According to the grant application, "the purpose of the Holocaust Memorial Concert is to commemorate this historic atrocity, honor its survivors and build cultural bridges between citizens in the Phoenix metro area and Arizona."
"It seems to me that my purpose as a conductor is to bring therapy and peace and harmony to my audience, no matter what age," Eynon says. "So that's why I'm so thrilled about this - because it's building bridges and my vision is to build a bridge with all communities."
A Holocaust Memorial Service will be held before the April 29 concert at 6:30 p.m. in the Roth Family Chapel at Temple Beth Israel.
Contact the writer at leisah_namm@jewishaz.com
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Details
- What: Dress rehearsal featuring question and answer session with Holocaust survivor Ella Adler
- For: Students, sixth grade and older, accompanied by an adult
- When: 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 15
- Who: Arizona Arts Chorale
- Where: Temple Beth Israel, 10460 N. 56th St., Scottsdale
- Cost: $3
- Call: 602-222-2226
- What: Holocaust Memorial Service
- Who: Temple Emanuel, Temple Beth Sholom, Tri-City Jewish Community Center
- When: 7 p.m. Monday, April 28
- Where: Temple Emanuel, 5801 S. Rural Road, Tempe
- Cost: Free admission
- Call: 480-838-1414
- What: Holocaust Memorial Concert: Songs of Struggle and Hope
- Who: Arizona Arts Chorale
- When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 29
- Where: Temple Beth Israel, 10460 N. 56th St., Scottsdale
- Cost: $15 adults, $12 seniors, free for children. Holocaust survivors are guests of AAC
- Call: 602-222-2226