News Items
Concertos of Disparate Voices
September 05, 2018
Our new multi-part virtual exhibit "Symphonic Music of Jewish Experience" highlights the work of composers exploring Jewish roots, religion and identity on a symphonic scale. Part one, available today, features ten concertos by nine composers and spans nearly a century. From Torah tropes and liturgical melodies to folk songs and biblical tales, each work explores the disparate intersections of history, liturgy, culture and geography, to deliver a musical experience that is richly diverse, uniquely Jewish and essentially American.
- Joseph Achron’s Violin Concerto No. 1 juxtaposes Ashkenazic Torah chants with Yemenite Jewish folk music.
- Sholom Secunda’s Fantasy for Violin and Orchestra, an unknown “concerto of the cantillations.”
- Robert Starer’s K’li Zemer has klezmer musician David Krakauer channeling Giora Feidman.
- Joel Hoffman transforms three songs by Mordechai Gebirtig into a riveting cello concerto.
- Ofer Ben-Amots and Paul Schoenfield couple the voice of prayer with the klezmer clarinet.
- Jacob Weinberg blends Yom Kippur liturgy with a Zionist folk song.
- Frederick Jacobi’s Concerto for Cello, a solemn meditation “On the Psalms."
- Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco teams up with the great violinist Jascha Heifetz.
- Janos Starker performs a “kaddish” by David Diamond
