Benjamin Sosland gives an impressive and insightful assessment of the Museum of Jewish Heritage's commemoration last September of the 65th anniversary of the massacre of more than 33,000 Jews, along with gypsies and prisoners of war, at Babi Yar ("A Premiere Recalls the Horror of Babi Yar"; Dec. 2006/Jan. 2007). The commemoration honored the memory of these victims with a concert, "Babi Yar Remembered: Yevtushenko and Shostakovich in Word and Song."

Both Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Dmitri Shostakovich brought the tragic event to world attention and are really men of courage, considering the fact that they could have been executed by Soviet authorities for merely expressing the truth. The personal appearance of Yevtushenko indeed helped to make this concert an extraordinary event.

As eloquent as Yevtushenko's poem "Babi Yar" is, it is really the documentary-novel Babi Yar by Anatoli Kuznetsov that tells the pathos and tragedy of Babi Yar. It is most controversial because authorities are mentioned as collaborators. The writer wrote this at risk to his own life. There are those of us who never forget those artists and their individual acts of courage, and those "righteous persons" who saved Jews during the Nazi occupation of Europe.

It is only fitting that there would be a Juilliard presence at this memorial concert, with bass soloist Valentin Peytchinov and pianists Misha and Cipa Dichter. It was moving to read what this concert meant to the Dichters personally. It should be noted that some of Juilliard's most illustrious alumni are children of Holocaust survivors, a testament to the tenacity of the survival of a people.

Music, itself, has been a crucial element to the survival of the Jewish people. When the brilliant but controversial composer Richard Strauss was once asked if he was an anti-Semite, he replied, "How can I be, when I know that without our Jewish friends all our opera houses and concert halls would be more than half empty?"

Complementary to the Babi Yar commemorative concert was a series of concerts, "Recovered Voices," conducted by James Conlon at the Los Angeles Opera in March. If we recall, Conlon created a series of concerts honoring composers who were victims of Nazi persecution a few years ago, in New York. Conlon, another Juilliard alumnus, has been considered the foremost advocate for those composers whose voices were silenced by the Holocaust. Thank you, maestro, for "remembering."

It was in the late 1950s, and I had just left the library on the third floor (Juilliard was then at Claremont Avenue) when I saw Rosina Lhévinne and pianist Emil Gilels walking in my direction. She was speaking in Russian while giving the pianist a tour of the building. Gilels was one of the few early artists that the Soviet authorities allowed to perform in America. He performed at Carnegie Hall and had some time to spend in New York. Accompanying Lhévinne and Gilels en route to the library were William Schuman, then president of Juilliard, and a couple of members of the Gilels entourage.

When Lhévinne had introduced herself to Gilels on the phone, inviting him to Juilliard, he had responded, "There is not a music student in Russia who has not heard of Josef and Rosina Lhévinne."

I have taken notice of the Babi Yar memorial concert, Conlon's "Voices" project, and the Lhévinne-Gilels episode as further reminders of the Juilliard legacy—at the forefront of the world stage, playing a role intrinsic to culture and history.


Rose Ann Roth
(B.S. '60, piano)
Rensselaer, N.Y.