Team Includes Composer Lori Laitman, Poet David Mason, Filmmaker John Sharify
SEATTLE, WA—November 30, 2009—“We are all children,” wrote 14-year old Hanus Hachenburg during WWII, from inside the walls of the Terezín concentration camp. “We look at a silvery world / At green hillsides, / At life. We look ahead.” Hanus composed this poem for a clandestine journal, Vedem, created by a group of teenage boys held at Terezín. In their memory, Music of Remembrance, a Seattle chamber music organization, has launched its most far-reaching artistic enterprise yet: The Vedem Project includes the commission of an oratorio and its world premiere on May 10 at Seattle’s Benaroya Hall, a subsequent CD recording, and a documentary film.
Every week for two years from 1942–44, the teenage inmates published their poems, articles and illustrations in Vedem. This remarkable story went largely unknown for decades, until the publication in 1995 of the book Vedem: We Are Children Just the Same, containing selections from 800 original pages that survived. The book’s poetic testimonies moved MOR Artistic Director Mina Miller to share their inspiring story with audiences around the world.
“Through words and music, and even a documentary film, we hope to add a new dimension to the way people remember the legacy of Terezín,” said Miller. “There is a priceless lesson for all of us in the extraordinary courage and idealism of those Terezín boys, and their refusal, as one of them wrote, to passively succumb to their fate.”
Miller knew that American composer Lori Laitman would find inspiration in the boys’ poetry, and commissioned a major musical work. Seattle audiences have had a front row seat for years on Laitman’s art song genius; the Journal of Singing has said, “It is difficult to think of anyone before the public today who equals her exceptional gifts for embracing a poetic text and giving it new and deeper life through music.” The result, VEDEM, is an hour-long oratorio for boy choir, instrumental quartet, and two solo voices—mezzo soprano and tenor. Its arias directly quote Terezín’s young prisoners’ poetry, woven into poet David Mason’s dramatic libretto portraying the children’s lives and ultimate fate. (Of the roughly one hundred boys who contributed to Vedem only fifteen lived to see liberation.)
Seattle’s Benaroya Hall is the setting for the oratorio VEDEM’s world premiere on May 10, 2010. For this one-night-only performance, MOR’s instrumental ensemble will be joined by opera vocalists Ross Hauck and Angela Niederloh, and the Northwest Boychoir led by Joseph Crnko. The evening begins with a meet-the-composer interview with Lori Laitman and librettist David Mason, discussing how they created this extraordinary work. (That evening, MOR and special guests are gathering for a pre-concert gala dinner and a post-concert reception. Packages start at $250 per person. Those interested in attending can call MOR for more details at 206-365-7770.)
To share Vedem’s extraordinary story with the world, shortly after the oratorio’s world premiere the same performers will record VEDEM at Benaroya Hall, taking advantage of the hall’s state-of-the-art technology.MOR has also launched production of an hour-long documentary film, The Boys of Terezín. Directed and narrated by award-making filmmaker John Sharify, the film will include interviews with the six Vedem contributors still alive. It will immerse audiences in the inspiring poetry and art of those courageous boys’ clandestine journal, and chronicle the creation—decades later—of a musical testament to their lives and art, and their unbending resistance to those who would rob them of their humanity.
Mainstage Concert Ticket Information:
Single Tickets: $36
Spring Concert: VEDEM
A concert to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day
Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall, Seattle
8:00 p.m., Monday, May 10, 2010
7:15 p.m. Meet the Composer: John Sharify interviews Lori Laitman and David Mason
Gerard Schwarz
In Memoriam (2005)
Julian Schwarz, cello soloist
Elisa Barston, violin; Leonid Keylin, violin; Susan Gulkis Assadi, viola; Mara Finkelstein, cello
Pavel Haas
String Quartet No. 3 (1938)
Mikhail Shmidt, violin; Elisa Barston, violin; Susan Gulkis Assadi, viola; Walter Gray, cello
Lori Laitman
VEDEM (2010) World Premiere (MOR Commission)
Libretto by David Mason
Ross Hauck, tenor; Angela Niederloh, mezzo soprano
Mikhail Shmidt, violin; Laura DeLuca clarinet; Walter Gray, cello; Mina Miller, piano
The Northwest Boychoir, Joseph Crnko conductor