Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival

2004 Season - “A Vanished World”

April 19, 2004
Levy Hall, Rodef Shalom Congregation

“An Evening of Jewish Song”
with Mimi Lerner, mezzo-soprano Aron Zelkowicz, cello
Luz Manriquez, piano and Rowna Sutin, soprano

This concert included Hebrew liturgical songs by Ben Steinberg, Yiddish art songs by Lazar Weiner, Yiddish folk songs, and cello pieces by Israeli composer Joachim Stutschewsky. The concert also featured a song cycle by the late Canadian composer Srul Irving Glick as the first of three works presented in the festival’s commemoration of his seventieth year: “We Are Children Just the Same”, a setting of poetry by teenage boys in the Terezin concentration camp.
(presented in conjunction with Music at Rodef Shalom)

April 27, 2004
Katz Performing Arts Center, JCC of Pittsburgh
“Klezmer Concertos”

Lucas Richman, conductor
Amitai Vardi, clarinet
Aron Zelkowicz, cello
Rueben Silver, narrator
Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival Orchestra

The vanished world of Eastern European shtetl culture is represented with Elliot Finkel’s setting of “The Fiddle”, a story by Sholom Aleichem as narrated by actor Reuben Silver, and a cello concerto about the great Yiddish folk poet Mordecai Gebirtig by composer Joel Hoffman. This concert also featured music by Lucas Richman, Srul Irving Glick, and the world premiere of a suite from Hans Krása’s children’s opera “Brundibár” that was performed in the Terezin concentration camp.

May 5, 2004 8:00pm
Levy Hall, Rodef Shalom Congregation
“Chamber Music from the Old World"

Jennifer Orchard and Dennis O’Boyle, violins
Marylene Gingras-Roy and Isaias Zelkowicz, violas
Michael Lipman and Aron Zelkowicz, cellos
Jeffrey Turner, bass
Natasha Snitkovsky, piano
Ron Samuels, clarinet
Alberto Almarza, flute
Gretchen van Hoesen, harp

Klezmer music, images from photographer Roman Vishniac, and the literature of Isaac Bashevis Singer inspired this concert featuring different instrumental combinations of flute, clarinet, piano, harp, and strings. Featured works included a piece by noted Pittsburgh composer David Stock called “A Vanished World” in addition to works by Osvaldo Golijov, Srul Irving Glick, Joel Hoffman, and David Schiff.