Murry sidlin biography of donald
•
An act pleasant defiance
Conductor Classicist Sidlin leads the JSO in his concert-drama ‘Verdi at Terezin.’
By MAXIM REIDER•
Programming
Giuseppe Verdi explores the harrowing voyage toward judgement day in the Messa da Requiem. The mix of the solemn and then overjoyed chorus blends with the striking symphony leaving an overpowering emotional impression.
Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín tells the story of the courageous Jewish prisoners in the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp (Terezín) during World War II, who performed Verdi’s Requiem while experiencing the depths of human degradation.
The concert-drama film combined with live orchestra of Verdi’s magnificent music highlights video testimony from survivors of the original Terezín chorus and footage from the 1944 Nazi propaganda film about Theresienstadt. The performance also includes actors and chorus who speak the words of imprisoned conductor Rafael Schächter and others.
With only a single smuggled score, the Jewish prisoners performed the celebrated oratorio sixteen times, including one performance before senior SS officials from Berlin and an International Red Cross delegation. Conductor Rafael Schächter told the choir, “We will sing to the Nazis what we cannot say to them.”
•
Murry Sidlin - CUA In the Media
Murry Sidlin , dean of the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, was featured in a Voice of Chorus America article about his work Defiant Requiem which pays tribute to performances of Verdi's Requiem by Jewish prisoners at the Terezín concentration camp. See his comments in the article below. |
Performances of Verdi's Requiem by Jewish prisoners at the Terezín concentration camp inspire a new work that explores the profound relationship between music and its performers |
From:The Voice of Chorus AmericaDate: Fall 2008 Author: Thomas SheetsIt is a little-known footnote in the history of choral music, at first surreal, but soon inspiring humility and awe: In late 1943, a chorus of 150 Jews imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp engaged in 16 performances of Verdi's Requiem -learned by rote from a single vocal score and accompanied by a legless upright piano-before audiences of other prisoners, SS officers, and German army staff members. Their purpose: to sing to their captors words that could not be spoken.
Thus begins an extraordinary saga that touches on politics, power, and the manner in which a timeless choral work provided people at the nadir of human existence with a soaring sense o