Eastman School of Music faculty members, students, and alumni will join the worldwide observance of Yom HaShoah by performing the Fifth Annual Holocaust Remembrance Concert at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, April 15, in Kilbourn Hall.
Titled “A Time to Remember . . .”, 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 works by Erwin Schulhoff, an adventurous modernist composer who died of tuberculosis at the Wülzburg concentration camp; Roman Ryterband,
who managed to escape to Switzerland just before the borders closed in 1939, while most of his family perished in the death camps. Ryterband became a prolific composer of classical music and popular songs; Leo Smit, a Dutch composer of chamber and vocal music, was murdered at Sobibor, a Nazi death camp in Poland; Hans Krasa, best-known for his children’s opera Brundibár, containing anti-Nazi symbolism, who was sentenced to Terezin camp but died in Auschwitz, and Lowell Liebermann, an American composer, represented in this concert with settings of poems by Nobel prize-winning author Nelly Sachs, known for her poetry about the Holocaust and Jewish identity.
In addition to Jolles, performers in “A Time to Remember . . .” include Eastman faculty members and guest performers: Bonita Boyd, flute; Tony Caramia, Chih-Yun Hsiao and Irina Lupines, piano; George Taylor, viola; Steven Doane, cello; Susan Jolles, harp; Richard Killmer, oboe; Kenneth Grant, clarinet; George Sakakeeny, bassoon; Kelly Whitesell, soprano; and Peter Kurau, horn.
Admission to the “A Time to Remember . . .” concert is $10 for the general public, free to UR ID holders. Tickets are available at the door. A reception provided by Temple Beth El of Rochester will be held after the concert.
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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 500 undergraduate and 400 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, as have numerous GRAMMYÒ Awards. Each year, Eastman’s students, faculty members, and guest artists present more than 700 concerts to the Rochester community.