The following comes from the College of Performing Art at Rowan University.
Rowan University’s String Ensemble honors memories and victims of the Holocaust with “Music from Theresienstadt,” a concert presented as part of the Music Department’s “Untold Stories: Truth & Music” series on Nov. 4 at 3:00 p.m. in the Pfleeger Concert Hall.
Theresienstadt was a concentration camp under the Nazi regime. Two works written at the camp, “Gideon Klein’s String Trio” and “Pavel Haas’ Study for Strings,” will be performed as part of the concert. The program will also feature “Concerto for Viola and Strings” by Dutch composer Leo Smit and “Concerto Grosso №1” by Ernest Bloch, who wrote music influenced by his Jewish heritage in the decades before Hitler rose to power.
Joining the ensemble will be guest artist and violist Sheila Browne who has appeared around the world and worked with the Gotham String Quartet, Audra MacDonald, the New World Symphony and Michael Tilson-Thomas, among others. Additionally, Karen Uslin, an adjunct professor of Music History and a Fellow for the Center of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Rowan, brings her expertise to the program as a guest speaker.
The Theresienstadt camp was built as a community for the cultural elite, such as artists, poets and musicians, including former members of the Boston Symphony, Vienna Philharmonic and other iconic institutions. Used by the Nazis for propaganda, some 150,000 people were held there.
The “Untold Stories” series aims to reexamine musical traditions in a way that reveals new meaning (ex. gangsters and pop culture, Richard Wagner and complicated legacies, music and the Holocaust) and to explore complex contemporary issues through music such as mental health awareness, environmental sustainability and cultural appropriation.
The Pfleeger Concert Hall is located in Wilson Hall at Rowan University. Tickets are $10 for general admission; $5 for seniors, students, alumni and military. Rowan students, faculty and staff are admitted free with valid ID. For additional information, call the box office at (856) 256–4545 or visit rowan.tix.com.
