To launch this milestone season, Music of Remembrance (MOR) founder and artistic director Mina Miller has curated a remarkable program that will take place at Benaroya Hall on Sunday, 30 October, at 5pm. The centerpiece is a new production of Josephine, Tom Cipullo’s one-act monodrama by based on the life of the legendary singer and dancer Josephine Baker, who found fame and success in France as an artist, a French Resistance hero, and a civil rights activist after escaping racism in America.
“Josephine tells a story that resonates with all of us today,” comments artistic director Mina Miller, “a story about a woman with the courage to fight back against prejudice and discrimination, and stand up for her art and ideals to make a difference in the world.” Starring soprano Laquita Mitchell in the title role, the production is directed by Erich Parce and conducted by Geoffrey Larson.
Also a highlight will be the world premiere of Wertheim Park, a setting of the poetry of Susan de Sola by composer Lori Laitman, which was commissioned by MOR. Soprano Alisa Jordheim interprets this haunting song, a deeply moving elegy for the Dutch Jews lost to the Holocaust.
In addition, the program includes chamber works by two Holocaust-era composers. Erwin Schulhoff’s virtuosic Concertino for Flute, Viola and Double Bass showcases two of the Seattle Symphony’s principal chairs, violist Susan Gulkis Assadi and flautist Demarre McGill, along with double bassist Jonathan Green. The concert opens with the elegiac Lamento for viola and piano by Dutch composer Max Vredenburg. Vredenburg sought haven in the Dutch East Indies only to endure years of captivity there under Japanese occupation; Schulhoff perished in a Nazi prison camp.
MOR’s stellar instrumental ensemble, drawn from the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, features flutist Demarre McGill, clarinetist Laura DeLuca, violinist Mikhail Shmidt, violist Susan Gulkis Assadi, cellist Walter Gray, double bassist Jonathan Green, and pianists Jessica Choe and Mina Miller.
Tickets and Information: https://www.musicofremembrance.org/concert/concert-josephine
For a quarter century now, 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.
Lamento (1953)
Max Vredenburg
Susan Gulkis Assadi, viola
Jessica Choe, piano
Wertheim Park (2022)
Music by Lori Laitman Poetry by Susan de Sola
World Premiere
Commissioned by Music of Remembrance
Alisa Jordheim, soprano
Laura DeLuca, clarinet; Mikhail Shmidt, violin; Jonathan Green, double bass; Mina Miller, piano
Concertino for Flute, Viola and Double Bass (1925)
Erwin Schulhoff
Demarre McGill, flute; Susan Gulkis Assadi, viola; Jonathan Green, double bass
Josephine (2016)
Music and Libretto by Tom Cipullo
A Monodrama in One Scene
Laquita Mitchell, soprano
Music of Remembrance Instrumental Ensemble
DeMarre McGill, flute; Laura DeLuca, clarinet; Mikhail Shmidt, violin; Walter Gray, cello;
Jessica Choe, piano
Geoffrey Larson, conductor
Erich Parce, director
Peter Crompton, media designer
Filed under: music news, Music of Remembrance
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 