Feb 23: Defiant Requiem performance at IUP

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Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín

Saturday, February 23

at Fisher Auditorium, Indiana PA

Complete live performance of Verdi's Requiem as performed in the Terezín Concentration Camp, interspersed with historic film, testimony from survivors and narration tells the moving story of courageous performances by the prisoners of a WWII concentration camp

Praised by The New York Times as "Poignant...a monument to the courage of one man to foster hope among prisoners with little other solace," Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín will be performed on February 23, 2019 at 7:30 pm at Fisher Auditorium(403 S. 11th Street) in Indiana, PA. 

The "extraordinarily beautiful and moving" concert/drama commemorates the courageous Jewish prisoners in the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp during World War II who performed Verdi's Requiem 16 times, as an act of defiance and resistance to their Nazi captors. Defiant Requiem is a complete live performance of Verdi's Requiem interspersed with historic film, testimony from survivors and narration that tells this tale of audacious bravery. This performance features the full Verdi Requiem with the chorus and soloists accompanied by a single piano, as it was in Terezín.

Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín features pianist Arlene Shrut with Colleen Ferguson on violin, the IUP Chorale and Penn State Altoona Ivyside Pride Vocal Ensemble, as well as soprano Annie Gill, mezzo-soprano Bonnie Cutsforth-Huber, tenor Tim Augustin, and bass Joseph Baunoch and actors Richard Kemp and Michael Schwartz. It will be conducted by Maestro Murry Sidlin, president of The Defiant Requiem Foundation and creator of this powerful concert/drama.

This performance of Defiant Requiem is presented by The Defiant Requiem Foundation, Indiana University of Pennsylvania Department of Music, and the Penn State Altoona Department of Arts and Humanities, with funding from the Gretchen M. Brooks University Residency Project.

Tickets for Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín are $10 general admission, $8 for seniors and $6 for students, anyone with a Military ID, and children under 18. Tickets are available online or in person at the The Lively Arts Ticket Office (in the lobby of the IUP Performing Arts Center, 403 S. 11th Street, Indiana, PA). 

Murry Sidlin and The Defiant Requiem Foundation also produced an Emmy-nominated documentary film narrated by Bebe Neuwirth that has been praised as a "gripping documentary" (Examiner.com), with "a very powerful message" (CNN). More information is at DefiantRequiem.org.

Orli Shaham featured on KUSC Arts Alive

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Listen to Orli Shaham's interview at this link.

Picture this: you’re driving down the 5 Freeway in the Central Valley. All of a sudden, in your rear view mirror you see two 30-foot stretch limos. As they pull up beside you, you notice that these limos aren’t your average everyday limos. They are, in fact, the world’s longest Steinway grand pianos, traveling at 90 miles-per-hour on the freeway.

That scene has never actually happened, but it was the inspiration for a piece of music by composer John Adams. The piano/limousine hybrids appeared in a dream that Adams had years ago and that dream inspired his Grand Pianola Music, a piece Adams wrote in 1982 and one that he says, “seems to have something to offend everybody.” There’s all sorts of noisemakers in the percussion section, three female voice parts, and the two piano soloists often play their parts just slightly out of synch with one another.

One of the soloists is Orli Shaham. She tells me she’s a big fan of the music of John Adams.

“I fell in love with the music of John Adams when I first heard his Century Rolls piano concerto. I had heard other pieces of his that I had liked quite a bit, but maybe because it was for piano, it suddenly spoke to a part of me that was much stronger. Since then, I’ve had the great pleasure of meeting him many times. We’ve become quite good friends. I’ve worked with him as a conductor and also recorded some of his music. That close collaboration you have with a composer when you are recording his or her music is very personal and intimate in that way.”

Shaham tells me she has performed Adams’ Grand Pianola Music with Adams and pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin, as she will this weekend with the LA Phil.

“Reliving an older piece of [Adams’] with him as a collaborator and seeing him, through the rehearsal process, figure out the sounds in the way that he intended them, I mean, this is the dream. We all want to know exactly what did the composer intend here? And here’s your chance: the composer is right there five feet away from you! You can know exactly what the composer intended. I find it so creatively satisfying to work with a composer of his intellect and just creative energy.”

Orli Shaham gives "commanding, powerful performance" with Milwaukee Symphony

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Elaine Schmidt, Special to the Journal Sentinel

Big sounds, musical depth and standing ovations rang out in Uihlein Hall Saturday night during Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s program of music by Bartok, Tchaikovsky and Still.

Playing under the baton of guest conductor Joshua Weilerstein and joined by pianist Orli Shaham, the orchestra presented Bartok’s Piano Concerto No. 3, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 and William Grant Still's “Poem for Orchestra.”

Shaham gave a commanding, powerful performance of the Bartok concerto, playing with a big, warm sound that was full of sometimes-bold and sometimes-subtle shifts in timbre and color.

Her performance was about more than just power and sound. Shaham brought emotional depth to the piece, from soaring first-movement statements and glowing energy in the final movement, to exquisitely voiced and shaped phrases in a deeply expressive second movement.

Weilerstein and the orchestra responded to her expressive, sonically rich interpretation as though engaging in a heartfelt conversation. Frequently looking over his shoulder at Shaham’s hands, Weilerstein created a seamless performance that brought the audience to its feet.

The themes of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 (“Pathetique”) may be etched in the minds of music lovers, but somehow that familiarity makes hearing the piece in a live performance something to be anticipated rather than taken for granted.

From heavy sighs in the strings, delivered in the thick, plaintive sounds that are part of Tchaikovsky’s musical signature, to strong, rousing brass lines, fluid solos from various instruments and audience-enveloping full-orchestra sounds, this was an engaging, exciting performance.

Weilerstein and the orchestra played with precision and superb communication, both between podium and players and between individuals and sections.

They brought elegance and grace to Tchaikovsky’s long, achingly beautiful phrases, crackling energy built of taut playing and brisk tempos to more strident, martial sections and artful, soulful expression to solo passages.

The evening ended with a standing, cheering ovation.

The evening opened with a riveting performance of William Grant Still’s 1944 “Poem for Orchestra.” Weilerstein and the Milwaukee Symphony gave a taut, well-balanced performance of the expressive, cinematic piece.

WFMT interviews Jeremy Gill about BMOP Concerto release

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Composer Jeremy Gill recently had the opportunity of a lifetime when the Boston Modern Orchestra Project agreed to record not one, not two, but three of his concertos. Listen to WFMT’s “Relevant Tones” to hear Seth Boustead talk with Jeremy and clarinet soloist Chris Grymes about this fantastic new release and play selections from the recording.

Listen to the interview at this link.