2010-2011 Concert and Lecture series

Their lives cut short by the horrors of war, and their works denied to be heard in the world’s concert halls, World War II affected all walks of life including music composition.

Several composers’ vital and passionately lyrical compositions were banned and entire schools of composition were eradicated during the Holocaust while small pockets of music thrived in concentration camps across Eastern Europe. The Phoenix Symphony will explore and perform many of these works for the first time during the 2010-11 Season in its series. Throughout he season and academic year, The Phoenix Symphony and the Arizona State University Center for Jewish Studies will present a series of lectures, films and discussions around the Valley, linking the musical presentations to the cultural and historical themes of assimilation, modernization, destruction and remembrance.

Community concert: Composers in the Concentration Camp

Feb 16, 2011 | ASU Gammage
Free and open to the public. No tickets.

This free concert will be conducted by world-renowned conductor Maestro Israel Yinon (Germany) and devoted entirely to the music of Jews who died in concentration camps:

  • Erwin Schulhoff Jazz Suite
  • Pavel Haas The Charlátan
  • excerpts Gideon Klein Trio for String Orchestra
  • Victor Ullmann Symphony in D Major

Musicians from the ASU School of Music will join local singers for this concert.

Maestro Israel Yinon is an Israeli-born, award-winning conductor who has devoted his career to rediscovering lost works of composers victimized by the Nazi regime. Maestro Yinon studied at the Rubin Academy of Music and has had an illustrious conducting and recording career with many leading orchestras. His debut CD, the world-premiere recording of the symphonic works of Viktor Ullmann with the Czech Brno Philharmonic Orchestra, won the coveted German Reviewers’ Recording Prize. He conducted the concert commemorating the 50th anniversary of Yad Vashem at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and in 2009 conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in a concert marking the anniversary of the birthday of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy whose music was banned by the Nazis.

Concert series

Performances in co-operation with The Phoenix Symphony  

Rediscovered Masters' works

Oct 7-9, 2010
KRÁSA: Brundibár 
WEINBERG: Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes
PROKOFIEV: Romeo and Juliet (selections)
October 7 performance is sponsored by Mr. and Mrs. William S. Levine in honor of The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Night of the Symphony

Nov 11-13, 2010
CORIGLIANO: Suite for Antiphonal Chorus
SCHUBERT: Symphony No. 8 (“Unfinished”)
MARCEL TYBERG: Completion of Schubert’s Symphony No. 8
Rediscovered Master’s World Premiere!

BRUCKNER: Mass in E. minor

Nov 26-27, 2010
SCHULHOFF: Symphony No. 2
MENDELSSOHN: Song Without Words Op. 19
MENDELSSOHN: Piano Concerto No. 1

DVORÁK: Symphony No. 9 (“New World Symphony”)

FEB 3 & 5, 2011
MENDELSSOHN: Elijah
with imagery in collaboration with The Phoenix Art Museum

Feb16, 2011
Composers in the Concentration Camp
7:30 p.m. | ASU Gammage Auditorium
Musicians from the Arizona State University School of Music will join local singers for this concert led by the renowned conductor Maestro Israel Yinon. Maestro Yinon has dedicated his career to recording and performing the works of Jewish composers.

Mar 3-5, 2011 
BRUCH: Violin Concerto No. 1
MENDELSSOHN: Symphony No. 5 (“Reformation”)
WAGNER: Siegfried Idyll
REDISCOVERED MASTERS: Selection TBD

Mar 24-26, 2011
WEILL: Suite from Threepenny Opera
HAAS: A Study for Strings
MOZART: Serenade for Strings (“Haffner”)

Apr 21 & 23, 2011
VERDI: La Forza del Destino (Overture)
MAHLER: Songs of a Wayfarer
MENDELSSOHN: Symphony No. 3 (Scottish)

May 19 & 21, 2011
CORIGLIANO: Red Violin Concerto
WILLIAMS: Theme from Schindler’s List
MENDELSSOHN: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Lecture series

Rediscovered Masters: From Mendelssohn to the Holocaust
Oct 6, 20107:30 p.m. | Congregation Beth Israel
Oct 7, 2010 | 6:30 p.m. | Symphony Hall
Hava Tirosh-Samuelson
Irving and Miriam Lowe Professor of Modern Judaism
Director, Center for Jewish Studies, Arizona State University

The Jews of Central Europe: Assimilation or Jewish Identity
Nov 10, 2010 | 7:30 p.m. | Congregation Beth Israel
Nov 11, 2010 | 6:30 p.m. | Symphony Hall
Marsha L. Rozenblit
Harvey M. Meyerhoff Professor of Jewish History
University of Maryland

The Young Felix Mendelssohn: The Making of a Musical Genius
Nov 22, 2010 | 7:30 p.m. | Congregation Beth Israel
Larry Todd
Arts and Sciences Professor of Music
Duke University

Judaism and Christianity: Shared Heritage, Diverse Interpretations
Feb 2, 2011 | 7:30 p.m. | Congregation Beth Israel
Feb 3, 2011 | 6:30 p.m. | Symphony Hall
David Schildkret
Professor of Choral Music,
Arizona State University School of Music

“An Hebraic Art Taste”: Wagner, Jews and the Business of Music
Mar 2, 2011 | 7:30 p.m. | Congregation Beth Israel
Mar 3, 2011| 6:30 p.m. | Symphony Hall
David Conway
Senior Research Fellow
University College, London

Theresienstadt: Hitler’s Unwitting Gift featuring a live performance of Gideon Klein’s String Trio
Mar 23, 2011 | 7:30 p.m. | Congregation Beth Israel
Robert Elias
Executive Director
The Orel Foundation

Robert Elias is President of The OREL Foundation, which is devoted to the music of European composers who were suppressed during the Nazi years. He is a graduate of The University of Southern California, where he also served as a Teaching Assistant while pursuing graduate studies in Historical Musicology. Between his undergraduate and graduate work, he spent a year in Hungary studying the educational methods of composer-pedagogue Zoltán Kodály at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest. Mr. Elias has also served as Executive Director of The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia; The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; The Orange County (CA) Philharmonic Society; Music Teachers National Association; The Cincinnati Arts Festival, Inc.; and as President and CEO of the Warren County (OH) Foundation.

Gideon Klein’s String Trio performed by:
Sarah Schreffler, violin | Allyson Wuenschel, viola | Adele Stein, cello

publicity PDF

Between Dream and Reality: German Jewish Composers after Wagner
May 18, 2011 | 7:30 p.m. | Congregation Beth Israel
May 19, 2011 | 6:30 p.m. | Symphony Hall 
Christopher Hailey
Musicologist

Musicologist Christopher Hailey, educated at Duke and Yale Universities, is a specialist in 20th-century music history. His many publications include a biography of the Austrian opera composer Franz Schreker, an edition of the correspondence between Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg, a translation of Theodor W. Adorno's biography of Berg, and several editions of scores by Berg and Schreker. Mr. Hailey is director of the Franz Schreker Foundation and from 1999-2003 was the visiting professor at the Arnold Schoenberg Institute in Vienna. In 2006-07 he was a member of the Institute for Advance Study in Princeton, where he was working on a history of Viennese musical modernism. In 2010 he was scholar in residence at the Bard Music Festival, for which he edited the essay volume Alban Berg and His World. In recent years he has taught seminars on “Music and the Holocaust” at Princeton University and The College of New Jersey. He has been a regular pre-performance lecturer for the Los Angeles Philhamonic and the Los Angeles Opera.