Eastman School of Music faculty members, students, and alumni will join the worldwide observance of Yom HaShoah by performing a Holocaust Remembrance Concert entitled “A Time to Remember,” on Sunday, May 5, 2019, at 7:30 p.m. in Kilbourn Hall. The concert features music written by those who perished or survived the World War II concentration and work camps, as well as music written in tribute to those who died. The series of annual concerts was launched in 2014 by Professor of Violin Renée Jolles. Her father, Jerome Jolles, buried bodies as part of a work detail in Romania during the Nazi occupation. He survived and came to the United States, where he finished his studies at Juilliard in music performance and composition. A virtuoso accordion player, piano teacher, and composer, Mr. Jolles died in January 2014.
The concert will feature the Suite for Bassoon and Piano by Alexandre Tansman, a Polish-Jewish composer who fled the Nazis in 1941, as well as Larry Zimmerman’s Windsongs: for the children of Terezin, a song cycle set to poems of the children of Terezinstadt, the infamous death camp of Czechoslovakia. The program also features rarely performed works of Lazlo Wiener and Erwin Schulhoff, who perished in the Holocaust, as well as David Maslanka’s Remember Me for solo cello and nineteen players which was inspired by a horrific Holocaust event involving the extermination of 5,000 Jews in a small town. Performers include Eastman faculty members and guests: Bonita Boyd, flute; George Sakakeeny bassoon; Alexander Kobrin, Chiao-Wen Cheng, and Ting Hong, piano; Renée Jolles, violin; Masumi Per Rostad, viola; Mimi Hwang, cello; Kathie Kane, mezzo-soprano; and Mark Scatterday and Garrett Wellenstein, conductors.
Open to the Public, new this year, admission to the “A Time to Remember . . .” concert is free. A reception provided by Temple Beth El of Rochester will be held after the concert in Cominsky Promenade.
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About Eastman School of Music:
The Eastman School of Music was founded in 1921 by industrialist and philanthropist George Eastman (1854-1932), founder of Eastman Kodak Company. It was the first professional school of the University of Rochester. Mr. Eastman’s dream was that his school would provide a broad education in the liberal arts as well as superb musical training. The current dean is Jamal Rossi, appointed in 2014.
About 900 students are enrolled in Eastman’s Collegiate Division—about 550 undergraduate and 350 graduate students. Students come from almost every state, and approximately 20 percent are from other countries. They are guided by more than 95 full-time faculty members. Six alumni and three faculty members have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music, and numerous alumni and faculty have received Grammy Awards. Each year, Eastman’s students, faculty members, and guest artists present more than 900 concerts to the Rochester community.