The Music of Terezin
October 11, 2023 7:30 PM
Please join the BMSO for “The Music of Terezin,” an evening of celebration and reflection. The program consists primarily of music composed by some of the prisoners who were held at the Terezin concentration camp in the Czech Republic during WWII. It is sure to entertain and to make you think.
Program
String Quartet no. 3 (1943) Viktor Ullmann (1898-1944)
I. Allegro moderato
II. Presto
III. Largo
IV. Rondo – Finale: Allegro vivace e ritmico
Ross Baumgardner, Violin
Dana Van Heukelom, Violin
Melissa Knell, Viola
Jeremy Overbeck, Cello
Divertimento for Wind Octet (1940) Gideon Klein (1919-1945)
III. Adagio-Presto
IV. Allegro
Tonya Mertz, Oboe Rhonda Gowen, Clarinet
Trudy Fraase-Wolf, Oboe Steve Glaesmann, Clarinet
Sara Boyd, Bassoon Miles Miller, Horn
Melissa Nygard, Bassoon Leslie Peterson, Horn
John Darling, Conductor
Ich wandre durch Theresienstadt (1942) Ilse Weber (1903-1944)
Dawn Hagerott, Soprano
Rhonda Gowen, Clarinet
Julie Schwartz, Piano
Epitaph VII: Memento (Terezin) for Clarinet in A and String Quartet (2008) Martin Ellerby (1957-)
1. The Closed Town
2. Arbeit
3. The Silent Hunger
4. Fear
5. The Butterfly
6. Tears
7. The Deportation Train
8. Forgotten
9. To Olga
Neil Tafelmeyer, Clarinet
Ross Baumgardner, Violin
Dana Van Heukelom, Violin
Lindsey Tafelmeyer, Viola
Jeremy Overbeck, Cello
Program Notes
Terezín, or as the Germans named it, Theresienstadt, is located about 40 miles northwest of Prague and was built as a garrison city in the 1780s. From 1941 to 1945, the Nazis used Terezín as a transit camp, ghetto, and concentration camp for Jewish prisoners. In spite of horrific living conditions, and the constant specters of starvation, death, and deportation, Jewish prisoners gave more than 2,400 lectures and presented more than 1,000 concerts — including 16 performances of Verdi’s Requiem Mass — for their fellow inmates. Despite the German propaganda image of Terezín as a “resort” for Jews, the statistics tell the real story: more than 140,000 people were imprisoned in Terezín and 33,430 were murdered within the ghetto walls. Another 88,000 were sent to the death camps, including 15,000 children, of whom fewer than 150 are believed to have survived. Terezín was liberated on May 8, 1945.
The music from tonight’s performance was written by some of the prisoners assigned to Terezín, with the exception of the Martin Ellerby piece. The accompanying pictures to the Ellerby were created by children being held at Terezin.
Thank you for attending tonight’s performance. A free will offering is being collected in the lobby to help pay for the expenses of bringing this music to you tonight.
Please join us next week, October 20 & 21, 2023, for the presentation of the “Defiant Requiem” with Maestro Murry Sidlin conducting.