Through Roses A music theatre work for speaker and 8 instruments (1980)
Martin Weigel, Speaker Daniel Grossmann, conductor
On the day before International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the JCOM is offering a special program for teenagers and young adults: In a combination of a conversation with a contemporary witness, Dr. Eva Umlauf, who survived the Holocaust as a small child, and a performance of the musical theater piece Through Roses, the Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich is contributing to the living memory of the Holocaust. In the interplay of conversation about real experiences and the fictional work of music and language, history is conveyed in a way that goes beyond factual knowledge.
In 1979, the American composer and pianist Marc Neikrug was commissioned to write a new work to educate people about and address the Shoah. The work was called Through Roses and quickly became a worldwide success. The story is as exemplary as it is cruel: a Jewish violinist may have survived the Holocaust, but the traumatic experiences haunt him. Again and again he suffers the horrors of the concentration camp; individual words and sounds trigger horrific memories: of how he was forced to play in the camp orchestra at executions, of how the orchestra had to play faster and faster while old men danced until they dropped, of how he played while his fiancée was being killed. The music that saved him becomes his punishment: in his perception, sounds become more and more distorted to the point of being unbearable.
FOR SCHOOL AND STUDENT GROUPS
AGE RECOMMENDATION: from approx. 16 years / 10th grade DURATION: approx. 90′ (conversation and concert) COSTS: € 300,- per school class, smaller groups by arrangement
BOOKING AND MORE INFORMATION: via the JCOM orchestra office, Tel. 089-12289599 / info@jcom.de
