 Jewish partisan music group in Belorussia, 1943 Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Benjamin (Miedzyrzecki) Meed |
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| Description | ||
| • Combines music and educational material to engage audiences in meaningful Holocaust remembrance • Concerts feature Holocaust songs of resistance and survival from the ghettos, camps, and partisans, followed by a new Judaic-inspired cello sonata that integrates these songs • Most often presented as a concert with an educational presentation or a pre-concert lecture • Goals–engender remembrance relevant to our current world, and increase tolerance and respect • Successful artistic and educational impact demonstrated by audience accolades and press coverage • Produced in the Czech Republic, Poland, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, and the US since 2015 launch |
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| Components | ||
| • Public Concert: Holocaust source songs followed by Sherr’s Sonata for Cello and Piano–Mir zaynen do!, or cello recital with Sherr's sonata and mixed repertory • Educational Presentation: Dr. Sherr's multimedia presentation integrated into the concert, or as a stand-alone or pre-concert lecture • Student Concert for ages 11-18: an adapted and abbreviated version of the Public Concert, with multi-media presentation • Online Educational Materials |
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| Selected Photos–Music of Resistance and Survival Project Productions | ||
  Commemoration of the Creation and Liquidation of the Kraków ghetto, Galicia Jewish Museum, Kraków, Poland, 2018 (Public Concert with In-Concert Educational Presentation)   Yom HaShoah Memorial Concert, Auckland, New Zealand, May 4, 2016 (Public Concert with In-Concert Educational Presentation) Photo credit: Shadows of Shoah   Kristallnacht Remembrance concert, Wroclaw, Poland, November 5, 2015 (Public Concert with In-Concert Educational Presentation)    Music of Resistance and Survival: A Holocaust Remembrance Concert, Atlanta, USA, March 23, 2015 (Public Concert with In-Concert Commentary)   Music of Resistance and Survival: A Holocaust Remembrance Concert, Atlanta, USA, March 23, 2015 (Student Concert with In-Concert Commentary) |
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| Press Coverage | ||
| TV interview: A Conversation With - Laurence Sherr (includes commentary on Music of Resistance and Survival Project) Radio interviews, including • Upbeat–Laurence Sherr, Radio New Zealand, 2016 • KSU Composer Pens Music in Remembrance of Holocaust Victims, WABE-FM, 2015 • The Haunting Music of the Holocaust, Georgia Public Broadcasting, 2015 • Friday Live: Saint Paul First Friday Music And Art Concert review Middle C: Classical Music Reviews, Wellington, New Zealand |
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| Videos | ||
| Public Concert video: Atlanta, USA, 2015 (third video) Student Concert video: Atlanta, USA, 2015 (fourth video) Cello sonata premiere performance video, Lincoln, USA, 2015, includes 3 source songs (first video) |
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| Upcoming Events | ||
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Music of Resistance and Survival "Day of Memory" (national program) for International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27) Teatro Titano San Marino, Republic of San Marino January 26, 2019 Nicola Baroni, cello Lorenzo Meo, piano Elena Tereshchenko, voice, 4 source songs |
San Marino lecture and Bologna, Italy concert details TBA |
| Past Events | ||
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Music of Resistance and Survival Commemoration Events for the Establishment and Liquidation of the Krakow Ghetto Galicia Jewish Museum Krakow, Poland March 10, 2018 Jan Kalinowski, cello Marek Szlezer, piano Urszula Makosz, singer, 4 source songs Announcement |
Sherr lecture: "Suppressed Music and Art during the Nazi Era" Galicia Jewish Museum March 9, 2018 Poster for both events |
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Music of Resistance and Survival Kristallnacht event Florida Holocaust Museum St. Petersburg, FL November 9, 2017 Theresa Villani, cello Colleen Schmitt, piano Gerald Arnold, tenor, 4 source songs |
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Prof. Laurence Sherr (Kennesaw State University): The Music of Resistance and Survival Project Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance Jerusalem, Israel December 13, 2016 Inbal Meggido, cello Jian Liu, piano |
Lecture-presentation, featuring a live performance of the sonata |
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The Best of Chamber Music - The Cello in Song Eden-Tamir Music Center, Ein Kerem Jerusalem, Israel December 10, 2016 Inbal Meggido, cello Jian Liu, piano |
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Kristallnacht Holocaust Commemoration Concert St James Theatre, 77-87 Courtenay Place Wellington, New Zealand November 9, 2016 Inbal Meggido, cello Jian Liu, piano Performance video Event info |
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Artist Series Concert University of Queensland Brisbane, Australia May 12, 2016 Inbal Meggido, cello Anna Grinberg, piano |
Sherr lecture: "Remembering the Silenced Voices of Holocaust Song Creators: Weaving Songs of Resistance and Survival into a New Cello Sonata” Creative Collaboratorium and RHD Seminar Series University of Queensland, May 11, 2016 UQ Composer's Workshop, May 13, 2016 |
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Educational concert for students Dilworth School Auckland, New Zealand May 9, 2016 Katherine Hebley, cello Penny Christiansen, piano |
Sherr educational presentation: Music of Resistance and Survival (recorded examples of sonata and source songs) Kadima School Auckland, New Zealand May 9, 2016 |
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Holocaust Memorial Concert: Music of Resistance and Survival Auckland Hebrew Congregation Auckland, New Zealand May 4, 2016 Katherine Hebley, cello Penny Christiansen, piano Fay Hadden McNeil, soprano, 4 source songs |
Sherr's presentation will be integrated into the concert: "Remembering the Silenced Voices of Holocaust Song Creators: Weaving Songs of Resistance and Survival into a New Cello Sonata.” The concert follows the Auckland Holocaust Memorial Service. Poster |
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Guest Artist Recital Conservatorium of Music University of Waikato Hamilton, New Zealand May 4, 2016 Inbal Meggido, cello Jian Liu, piano |
Sherr lecture: "Remembering the Silenced Voices of Holocaust Song Creators: Weaving Songs of Resistance and Survival into a New Cello Sonata”, May 4, 2016 Composition class lecture, May 4, 2016 |
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Wellington Chamber Music: Sunday Concerts 2016 St Andrew's on The Terrace Wellington, New Zealand May 1, 2016 Inbal Meggido, cello Jian Liu, piano Sherr interview–Radio New Zealand Concert review Wellington Chamber Music brochure |
Sherr lecture: "Remembering the Silenced Voices of Holocaust Song Creators: Weaving Songs of Resistance and Survival into a New Cello Sonata” Holocaust Centre of New Zealand, Wellington, April 27, 2016 Sherr Pre-Concert Presentation, May 1, 2016 Sherr lecture: "Music at Auschwitz: Aid to Survival or Dehumanizing Degradation?" NZSM Music Forum, Wellington, May 6, 2016 |
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Songs of Identity and Survival: A Kristallnacht Remembrance (see photos above) Karol Lipinski Academy of Music Wroclaw, Poland November 5, 2015 Part of the Days of Mutual Respect festival Petr Nouzovsky, cello Yukie Ichimura, piano Anna Blaut, vocals, and Tomasz Kaczmarek, piano, 2 source songs |
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Music of Resistance and Survival (concert with commentary) Chapel of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren Prague, Czech Republic November 3, 2015 Petr Nouzovsky, cello Yukie Ichimura, piano Kristyna Valousková, soprano, 3 source songs |
Sherr lecture: "Remembering the Silenced Voices of Holocaust Song Creators: Weaving Songs of Resistance and Survival into a New Cello Sonata” Faculty of Humanities, Charles University Prague Prague, Czech Republic November 2, 2015 |
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Faculty Recital Red Lodge Music Festival Red Lodge, MT June 6, 2015 Karen Becker, cello Jay Mauchley, piano |
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"Music of Resistance and Survival: A Holocaust Remembrance Concert" (with commentary by directors of Atlanta Holocaust educational institutions and other community leaders – see photos above) The Temple Atlanta, GA March 23, 2015 • morning Student Concert – Music, Theatrical Scenes, and Exhibits • evening Public Concert – Concert, Speakers, and Exhibits Sherr radio interview 1–WABE | Sherr radio interview 2–GPB | Preview article (pg. 25) Charae Kreuger, cello Robert Henry, piano Cantors Deborah Hartman and Nancy Kassel, Judy Cole, piano, 4 source songs |
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Faculty Recital Kennesaw State University Atlanta, GA January 26, 2015 Charae Kreuger, cello Robert Henry, piano |
"Source Material and Holocaust Remembrance in Sonata for Cello and Piano–Mir zaynen do!," recital commentary |
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"Favored and Forbidden" Faculty Recital University of Nebraska Lincoln, NE January 15, 2015 WORLD PREMIERE Karen Becker, cello Jay Mauchley, piano Kate Butler, mezzo-soprano, 3 source songs Sherr radio interview–NET Recital video |
Education and outreach events by Dr. Sherr: • "Suppressed Music and Art during the Nazi Era," Harris Center for Judaic Studies Guest Lecture, 1/14/15 • "Music at Auschwitz: Aid to Survival or Dehumanizing Degradation?,"School of Music Convocation, 1/15/15 • "Favored and Forbidden," recital commentary • “An Introduction to Klezmer and Gypsy Music, and their influence on Western Classical Music," The Jewish Federation of Lincoln, 1/18/15 Poster |
| Sonata for Cello and Piano–Mir zaynen do! | ||
| • Sonata can be performed independently, on concerts and recitals, and at Holocaust remembrance events • 3 movements, 24 minutes duration; each movement can be performed alone |
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| Program Notes | ||
| The creation and singing of songs was an important and widespread activity among persecuted groups during the Holocaust. The songs served a wide range of purposes: expressing inner feelings, encouraging resilience and resistance, establishing identity, strengthening faith and courage, lamenting loss and current circumstances, and longing for earlier and better times, among many others. My sonata includes four songs that originated in ghettos, concentration camps, or among the partisans. Mir zaynen do! (We Are Here!), the subtitle of my work, is a refrain in one of these songs: Zog nit keynmol az du geyst dem letstn veg (Never Say You Are Walking the Last Road). Partisan poet Hirsh Glik penned this emblematic Yiddish phrase as the concluding refrain in Zog nit keynmol; it is a phrase that signified identity, resistance, and survival, and that has been used similarly in numerous titles and initiatives since then. The sonata-form first movement uses the song Yid, du partizaner (Jew, You Partisan) as the first theme. Vilna ghetto and partisan activist Shmerke Kaczerginski wrote the emboldening Yiddish lyrics to an existing melody that he likely heard in the partisan forests. Kaczerginski was a tireless advocate whose collecting of Holocaust songs is most well known through his post-war publication Lider fun di getos un lagern (Songs from the Ghettos and Camps). Three of the songs in the sonata appear in this collection. The second movement draws upon the work of two Jewish musicians–like in the other movements, these sources are integrated with newly composed material. The first source is Kel (El) mole rachamim, a Jewish prayer for the souls of the deceased as sung by Cantor Sholom Katz. Katz recounted that his life was spared when he sang this prayer just before a mass execution during the Holocaust. He continued singing the prayer after the war with newly added words that lament the murder of European Jews in extermination camps such as Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Treblinka. The cello ‘intones’ transcribed excerpts from Katz’s singing as the movement unfolds. The second source is the comforting lullaby Wiegala that Czech poet and writer Ilse Weber created while a prisoner in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The lullaby gradually emerges near the end of the movement. Zog nit keynmol is the basis for the theme and eight variations in the third movement. Vilna poet Hirsh Glik used a film melody by Soviet-Jewish composers Dmitri and Daniel Pokrass to create this song after hearing about the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising and other Jewish resistance. Glik’s lyrics convey defiant hope in the face of adversity, and the song quickly spread across Yiddish-speaking Europe. In my variation movement, the final variation features the piano continuing with Zog nit keynmol while the cello simultaneously plays the song Yugnt himn (Youth Hymn). Yugnt himn is a 1943 motivational song for the Vilna ghetto youth club that Kaczerginski created by writing lyrics to music that Vilna resident Basye Rubin had composed before the war. Both of these songs show the remarkable resilience in Vilna, where only about 4–5% of the Jewish population survived the Holocaust. Each of the creators of the songs used in the sonata has a compelling story. Their songs provide illumination of their lives and circumstances, allow us to gain perspective on lost and forbidden voices, and help us to understand the unprecedented tragedy of the Holocaust. By creating a new composition drawing on the work of these creators, it is my hope that performers and audiences will connect with their stories, and that the legacy of their cultural contributions will be strengthened and remembered. |
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| Dedication | ||
| Sonata for Cello and Piano–Mir zaynen do! is dedicated to my father, Saul Sherr (1925–2012). Born Szolim Szereszewski in the Polish shtetl of Szczuczyn, he was a Yiddish speaker whose love of cantorial singing and Jewish music influenced me in ways I am still coming to realize. |
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| Sources: Song and Creator Information | ||
| Lyrics for the source songs and prayer | ||
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Yid, du partizaner (Jew, You Partisan) Shmerke Kaczerginski (1908–1954) had numerous opportunities to become familiar with Russian popular song melodies–from 1939–41, when the Soviets entered parts of Poland, and when, after fleeing with other Jewish partisans just before the 1943 Nazi liquidation of the Vilna ghetto, he eventually joined a Soviet partisan unit in the Lithuanian-Belorussian forests. For his fellow Jews in that unit, he created Yid, du partizaner by writing new lyrics to a Russian song he had likely encountered in the forests. The lyrics speak of survival and revenge, and indeed, Kaczerginski participated in the liberation of his home city of Vilna in 1944. Immediately after the war, he worked assiduously to collect songs of the ghettos, camps, and partisans. These were published in a number of collections, most notably his comprehensive anthology Lider fun di getos un lagern. He was also active as a prominent writer and lecturer, but his work was cut short when he perished in a plane crash in South America in 1954. |
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Kel (El) mole rachamim Cantor Sholom Katz (1915–1982) was recognized as a gifted singer at a young age. After studying voice in Budapest and Vienna, he became Chief Cantor in Kishinev, Bessarabia, just before the war. In 1942, prior to being shot with a group of several thousand other Jews, he requested permission to sing. His moving vocal interpretation of Kel mole rachamim, a traditional Jewish prayer for mercy for the souls of the deceased, led the Nazi commandant to spare his life. Katz subsequently survived concentration camp internment, and after the war, continued to sing Kel mole rachamim. He chanted the prayer at prominent international remembrance ceremonies, and added new prayer text that describes Jewish suffering during the Holocaust and names several of the infamous camps. His singing and his story were so compelling that I transcribed several essential excerpts from one of his Kel mole rachamim recordings for use in the second movement of my cello sonata. |
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Wiegala Ilse Weber (1903–1944) worked as a children’s author and radio producer in pre-war Prague, where she was also active as a singer who played lute, guitar, mandolin, and balalaika. In 1942, she was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp along with her husband and one of her sons. She continued to write poetry and songs, and sang the songs for other prisoners. Her songs ranged from I Wander through Theresienstadt, which bore witness to camp life, to the lullaby Wiegala, which provided solace and comfort in lieu of the medicine that was not available in the children’s infirmary where she worked. Her husband Willi was deported to Auschwitz in 1944; she and her son followed soon after, and were gassed on arrival. Willi survived, and recovered her creative work he had buried before his deportation. Her Theresienstadt poems are collected in the volume Inside These Walls, Sorrow Lives. |
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Zog nit keynmol Hirsh Glik (1922–1944) was a young poet and Zionist youth organization member at the time of the 1941 Nazi occupation of Vilna. As an original member of the Jewish underground resistance organization FPO (Fareynigte Partizaner Organizatsye), he was particularly active in the cultural life of the ghetto. In the spring of 1943, in response to news of the Warsaw ghetto uprising and Jewish partisan armed resistance near Vilna, he penned new lyrics to a march melody by the Soviet-Jewish composers Dmitri and Daniel Pokrass. His uplifting lyrics conveyed defiant optimism despite adversity, especially with the Yiddish phrase that ends the first and final verses: “Mir zaynen do!” (We are here!). The song was soon adopted as the FPO hymn, and had spread across much of Europe by the end of World War II. Captured when the Vilna ghetto was liquidated, Glik continued to create poetry in several concentration camps. He escaped in 1944, but perished in a battle against the Germans. |
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Yugnt himn In 1943, Kaczerginski combined a number of his pursuits, including those as a folklorist, songwriter, political activist, collector, and educator, when he created Yungt himn, a new song dedicated to the Vilna ghetto youth club. Along with other partisans, Kaczerginski served there as a mentor and organizer of cultural events. At the meetings, communal singing was a crucial activity for stimulating group identity, zeal, and courage, and perhaps encouraged the youth to participate in the resistance. Set to pre-war music by Vilna resident Basye Rubin, the lyrics of Yungt himn exhort energetic group devotedness, youthfulness, and “boldness” for people of all ages. The club embraced the song, singing it at all meetings during the following few months while it was still in existence. |
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| Commissioning Consortium–Cellists | ||
| • Nicola Baroni, "Claudio Monteverdi" Conservatory, Bolzano, Italy • Karen Becker, University of Nebraska, Lincoln Symphony Orchestra Principal, Lincoln, NE, USA, Performer Representative • Katherine Hebley, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, New Zealand • Parry Karp, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Pro Arte Quartet, Madison, WI, USA • Charae Krueger, Kennesaw State University, Atlanta Opera and Atlanta Ballet Orchestra Principal, Atlanta, GA, USA • Inbal Megiddo, New Zealand School of Music, Wellington, New Zealand • Thalia Moore, Earplay, San Francisco Opera and Ballet Orchestras, San Francisco, CA, USA • Petr Nouzovský, performing and recording artist, Prague, Czech Republic • Dennis Parker, Lousiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, US • Martina Rühmkorff, Cordi Con Brio ensemble, Dietzenbach, Germany • Michal Schmidt, University of Pennsylvania, Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges, Philadelphia, PA, USA • Adiel Shmit, performing artist, Haifa, Israel • Theresa Villani, performing and recording artist, Tampa, FL, USA • Anna Wróbel, performing and recording artist, Warsaw, Poland |
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| Educational Resources–Secondary and Primary Educators and Students |
| Teacher's Guide: Music in the Holocaust Music and the Holocaust (ORT) Finding a Voice: Musicians in Terezín Music in Holocaust Education Between the Worlds – Social Circles in the Theresienstadt Ghetto Handbook for Teachers: Guidelines for Teaching about the Holocaust A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust The Holocaust Explained Echoes and Reflections |
| Project Support |
| To support the ongoing development and dissemination of the Music of Resistance and Survival Project, please use this link: https://community.kennesaw.edu/givetoarts Please designate "School of Music" and then add "Holocaust Music Project" in the subsequent Comments section. The Kennesaw State University Foundation, Inc., which handles donatations, is a nonprofit 501 (c)(3) organization. Thank you very much for your support. |
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| We gratefully acknowledge the support of individuals, institutions, and businesses for project events and development. |
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