FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 8, 2022
Contact: Mina Miller, Artistic Director; Steve Griggs, Administrator
(206) 365-7770
info@musicofremembrance.org
www.musicofremembrance.org

Music of Remembrance returns to Benaroya Hall with music for our time

featuring Stormy Seas premiere about child boat refugees

SEATTLE, WA—On Sunday, March 13, 2022 at 5:00 pm, MOR returns to Benaroya Hall for its second live concert of the season. The program, titled Stormy Seas, features the first public performance of Iranian-American composer Sahba Aminikia’s work of that title. It tells five inspiring true stories of young people who braved the peril of setting sail in search of safe shores: from Nazi Germany; from communist Cuba; from war-torn Vietnam; from Taliban-dominated Afghanistan; from an orphanage in Ivory Coast. The work is a testament to hope and courage, and an appeal to our shared humanity.

The program also explores an often-neglected Sephardic legacy. Rodas Recordada by Canadian composer Sid Robinovitch is an evocative remembrance of the community on the Aegean island of Rhodes and its fate under Nazi occupation, and it reveals a surprising arc from that island to Seattle. We’re led on a timeless journey with Robinovitch’s poignant settings of two Ladino songs of love and loss. The concert also includes chamber works by three wartime Dutch composers whose lives and music deserve to be better known: Dick Kattenburg, Géza Frid and Henriette Bosmans, whose lyrical Nuit Calm will be performed by 14-year old cellist Leyna Kitahama, a recipient of the Music of Remembrance 2021 David Tonkonogui Memorial Award.

MOR’s stellar ensemble is drawn from the ranks of the Seattle Symphony. Special guests include baritone José Rubio, mezzo soprano Karen Early Evans, soprano Vanessa Isiguen, guitarist Michael Partington, pianist Christina Valdes, and child actors Mia Habermann, Vritika Gupta, and Makayla Burley.

About Music of Remembrance

Now in its 24^th year, 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.

Tickets and information: https://www.musicofremembrance.org/concert/concert-stormy-seas-0

Henriette Bosmans
Nuit Calme (1926)
Leyna Kitahama, cello, Mina Miller, piano

Dick Kattenburg
String Trio (1938)
Mikhail Shmidt, violin; Susan Gulkis Assadi, viola; Walter Gray, cello

Two Ladino Songs
Adio Querida
José Rubio, baritone

Alvores lloran por luvias
Karen Early Evans, mezzo soprano
Laura DeLuca, clarinet; Walter Gray, cello; Michael Partington, guitar
arranged for Music of Remembrance by Sid Robinovitch

Sid Robinovitch
Rodas Recordada (2005)
Vanessa Isiguen, soprano; Karen Early Evans, mezzo soprano; José Rubio, baritone;
Laura DeLuca, clarinet; Walter Gray, cello; Michael Partington, guitar

Géza Frid
String Trio, Op. 1 (1926)
Mikhail Shmidt, violin; Susan Gulkis Assadi, viola; Walter Gray, cello

Sahba Aminikia
Stormy Seas (2020)
World Premiere Commissioned by Music of Remembrance

Child actors: Mia Habermann; Vritika Gupta; Makayla Burley

Laura DeLuca, clarinet; Mikhail Shmidt, violin; Walter Gray, cello; Christina
Valdes, piano 
Erich Parce, director; Peter Crompton, projection designer

Publication Date

Tue, 2022-02-08 12:00