Juilliard presents inaugural Pro Musica Hebraica concert series on Tuesday, April 8 at 8 PM at the New York Society for Ethical Culture and on Thursday, April 10 at 7:30 PM in the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater
Chamber Music concerts feature the Biava Quartet and guest artists in performances of rare masterworks by composers from the St. Petersburg School of Russian Jewish composers; Juilliard faculty member, violinist Itzhak Perlman, to join student performers for Kennedy Center concert
Juilliard’s graduate resident string quartet, the Biava Quartet, will be joined by guest artists for two concerts of chamber music as part of the inaugural Pro Musica Hebraica concert series on Tuesday, April 8 at 8 PM at the New York Society for Ethical Culture (located at 2 West 64th Street) and on Thursday, April 10 at 7:30 PM in the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater. FREE tickets for the April 8 concert will be available beginning March 24 at the Juilliard Box Office, located at 60 Lincoln Center Plaza. Box Office hours are Monday through Friday from 11 AM – 6 PM. The Juilliard Box Office is accessible by elevator, escalator, or stairs located on W. 65th Street near Amsterdam Avenue. For further information, call the Juilliard Box Office at (212) 769-7406 or visit the Web site at www.juilliard.edu.
The program for Tuesday, April 8 at 8 PM at the New York Society for Ethical Culture at 2 West 64th Street features Aleksandr Krein’s Jewish Sketches, Vol. 2, Op. 13 (1910) with the Biava Quartet and clarinetist Tibi Cziger; Osvaldo Golijov’s The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind (1994) and Joel Engel’s Suite from The Dybbuk (1922) with the Biava Quartet and clarinetist Tibi Cziger, bassist Andrew Roitstein, and percussionists Michael Caterisano and Alexander Lipowski; Mikhail Gnesin’s Piano Trio Requiem for Our Lost Children, Op. 63 (1943) with the N-E-W Trio (Andrew Wan, violin, Gal Nyska, cello, and Julio Elizalde, piano); and Solomon Rosowsky’s Piano Trio Frantastusher Tants, (Fantastic Dance), Op. 6 with the N-E-W Trio.
The concerts celebrate the 100th anniversary of the St. Petersburg School of Russian Jewish composers. This group of composers came together during the first decade of the 20th century to forge a Jewish national style of art music. They blended Hasidic melodies, Yiddish folksongs, and Jewish synagogue chants with the styles and techniques of their teachers and mentors, other Russian composers of the period (Rimsky-Korsakov, Glazunov, and Scriabin.). The result was rich, passionate modern Jewish music.
The two concerts (in New York and Washington, D.C.) feature works by composers Aleksandr Krein, Joel Engel, Leo Zeitlin, Mikhail Gnesin, and Solomon Rosowsky. An additional work by Argentinian-born composer Osvaldo Golijov also will be performed.
Violinist and Juilliard faculty member Itzhak Perlman and his longtime collaborator, pianist Rohan De Silva, join the Juilliard student performers in the Washington, D.C. concert, part of a series initiated by Pro Musica Hebraica. The D.C.-based educational organization was established by Charles Krauthammer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning political columnist for the Washington Post and his wife, Robyn Krauthammer, an artist, who have been working with the Kennedy Center to develop a series focusing on the rediscovery of Jewish classical music and helping to integrate it into the mainstream repertoire of chamber and symphonic musical performance.
The program for Thursday, April 10 at 7:30 PM in the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater features the works being performed on April 8 New York concert by Krein, Golijov, Engel, Gnesin, Rosowsky, and Leo Zeitlin’s Eli Zion (1914) with violinist Itzhak Perlman and pianist Rohan De Silva.
FREE tickets for the April 8 concert will be available beginning March 24 at the Juilliard Box Office, located at 60 Lincoln Center Plaza. Box Office hours are Monday through Friday from 11 AM – 6 PM. The Juilliard Box Office is accessible by elevator, escalator, or stairs located on W. 65th Street near Amsterdam Avenue. For further information, call the Juilliard Box Office at (212) 769-7406 or visit the Web site at www.juilliard.edu.
The concert on April 10 at 7:30 PM is at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater. For ticket information, call (202) 467-4600 or go to www.kennedy-center.org
Conductor James Conlon, is the artistic advisor for Pro Musica Hebraica and has championed the work of Jewish composers who were affected by Nazi Germany and World War II. Next month, on April 11, 13 and 16, Mr. Conlon will conduct a series of three chamber ensemble concerts of Generative and Degenerate Music. For more information on those concerts, which take place at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall (Ensemble ACJW, April 11 at 8:30 PM) and John Jay College (the AXIOM Ensemble, April 13 at 3 PM and 16 at 8 PM), call The Juilliard School at (212) 769-7406 or go to www.juilliard.edu.
For more information on Pro Musica Hebraica, go to www.promusicahebraica.org.