About Featured Artists at ORCMA Concerts

BRUNDIBAR, CHILDREN'S OPERA, FEATURING SOUND COMPANY

AND THE OAK RIDGE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Saturday, Feb. 11, at 8 p.m., Oak Ridge High School Performing Arts Center

ORSO, Sound Company concert Feb. 11
includes Brundibar children’s opera
 
 
The children’s opera entitled Brundibar was performed 55 times in 1944 by Jewish children interned at a Nazi-controlled Czech transit camp for Jews destined for the gas chambers at Auschwitz.
 
Members of the Sound Company, the Children’s Performing Choir of Oak Ridge, will present Hans Krasa’s children’s opera at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 11, at Oak Ridge High School Performing Arts Center. The children will be accompanied by the Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Dan Allcott.  The cast members are in the Sound Company choir consisting of students in the sixth to eighth grades and representing more than 10 area schools.
 
Allcott and the Sound Company directors -- Katy Wolfe Zahn and Terry D. Alford – are in charge of choral preparation, staging and choreography.  
 
In the story siblings Annette (Maggie Kohlbusch) and Little Joe (DaVonte Majors) walk into town hoping to find some milk to bring home to their sick mother. Upon finding the milkman (Jonah Zahn), they realize they need money to buy the milk. They spot an organ grinder, named Brundibár (Adam Bell), who has made lots of money playing and singing in the streets.
 
Annette and Little Joe sing a song, hoping the passersby will give them the money they need. Being a bully Brundibár bellows loudly, threatens the siblings and tells them to run away or he will have them put in jail. The siblings get no help from the ice cream man (Matthew Martin), the baker (Erin Wallace) or the policeman (Noah Dutton).
 
The bewildered brother and sister spend the night in an alleyway. There they meet Sparrow (Kate Fulcher), Dog (Briley Wright) and Cat (Savanah Ward), who promise to round up many children to join their cause.
 
The 23 schoolchildren who help the siblings drown out Brundibár are played by members of the Sound Company.
 
Other works to be performed by ORSO are Krasa’s “Overture for Small Orchestra,” Alan Hovhaness’s “Psalm & Fugue” and Ernest Bloch’s “Concerto Grosso No. 1.”
 
The concert is sponsored by UT-Battelle, Francis Sturm Cultural Fund of the Jewish Congregation of Oak Ridge and the Tennessee Arts Commission.
 
Tickets cost $25 for adults and $8 for students over 18 years with college ID. Children and teens 18 and under are admitted for free. Tickets may be purchased at the door or through the www.oakridgesymphony.com website or the Oak Ridge Civic Music Association office (865-483-5569 or office@orcma.org).

Sound Company, The Children’s Performing Choir of Oak Ridge, was founded in July 2003 by Sue Stone Byrne, Sally Avery, and Francine Britto. The gold award-winning choir is a nonprofit performing arts ensemble of children from Oak Ridge and the surrounding areas. Sound Company and its freshmen choir, Sound Company Too!, comprise students in grades 1 through 12. Their work focuses on basic choral skills, healthy vocal technique, and challenging choreography.

During the 2008-2009 season, Sound Company consisted of 39 seniors, 42 juniors, and 26 "Too!" children and teens between grades 1 and 10. These 107 student members represented 29 different schools: Oak Ridge Schools (Glenwood, Linden, Willowbrook, and Woodland Elementary, Jefferson and Robertsville Middle, St. Mary's Catholic School and Oak Ridge High School), Anderson County High School, Cedar Bluff Elementary, Central Elementary in Wartburg, Fountain City Elementary, Grand Oakes Elementary, Hardin Valley Elementary, Karns Elementary, Norwood Elementary, Norris Elementary, Philadelphia Elementary, Clinton Middle School, Bearden High School, Cedar Bluff High School, Farragut High School, Karns High School, William Blount High School in Maryville, Christian Academy of Knoxville, Concord Christian School, Episcopal School of Knoxville, Grace Christian Academy, Knoxville Catholic High School, and Webb School of Knoxville. In addition, some of our members are home schooled.

STUDY GUIDE FOR BRUNDIBAR CREATED BY THE ASHEVILLE LYRIC OPERA

Aninka (ah-neen-kah) and Pepícek (peh-pea-check), two siblings, walk into town hoping to find some milk to bring home to their sick mother. Upon finding the milkman, they realize they must get some money to buy the milk. They spot an organ grinder, named Brundibár (broon-dee-bar), who has made lots of money playing and singing in the streets. Aninka and Pepícek decide to sing a song, hoping the passersby will give them the money they need. Brundibár continues to bellow loudly, and no one pays attention to the children. They begin to imitate Brundibár, and the adults in the street notice them. The adults scold the children, telling them to be quiet. Brundibár threatens the siblings, telling them to run away or he will have them put in jail. Aninka and Pepícek, bewildered, spend the night in an alleyway. There they meet a sparrow, dog, and cat, who promise to bring to them the aid of many children to join their cause. The next morning, Sparrow, Dog, and Cat round up a large group of children as Brundibár takes his place in the square. As he begins to play his hurdy-gurdy, Cat meows and Dog howls. Brundibár tries to chase them away. The many children appear, and led by Aninka and Pepícek, they sing a song together. Brundibár tries to overpower them, but the children’s voices drown him out and draw the attention of people in the square. They begin to give the children money for their song. Brundibár sneaks up on Pepícek and steals the money. The children chase down Brundibár and return the money to its rightful owners. They all celebrate their victory over this bully and sing a triumphant song together.

THE COMPOSER

Hans Krása was born in Prague on November 30, 1899. He began piano lessons at age 6 and liked to play four hand arrangements of symphonies with his sister. He began playing the violin at age 10 and composed his first piece at age 11. One of Krása’s greatest mentors was the great Alexander Zemlinsky. Other influences on his musical style were Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Webern, Bartok, and Janácek. Krása associated himself with artists and writers in the theater and composed music for a play by Adolph Hoffmeister, which brought him great acclaim. In 1938, he later collaborated with Hoffmeister to write the one-act opera, Brundibár. Hoffmeister wrote the libretta (the spoken words) and Krása composed the music for the children's opera. Krása also wrote a full-length opera called Betrothal in a Dream.

Once the Nazis had occupied Prague during World War II (a war started by the German Nazis in Europe in 1939 and concluded in 1945), a Jewish orphanage called Hagibor was formed. Rudolph Freudenfeld, Sr., its director, provided music education for the boys who lived there. Even though it was against the Nazis’ rules, Fruedenfeld found ways for the wards of the orphanage to perform artistic works. For Fruedenfeld's 50th birthday, Brundibár was first produced. (The opera was anonymously submitted in a prior competition, but it was never performed owing to changes in the political climate.) The great conductor Rafael Schächter began rehearsing it with Freudenfeld’s son as his assistant, and theater designer-director František Zelenka designed the sets and directed the staging. In 1941, Schächter was taken to the concentration camp, Theresienstadt, so Freudenfeld’s son took over the rehearsal process. The production premiered in 1942 in the orphanage dining room. About 150 people came, and the one-act opera received great acclaim. Krása and Zelenka had also been taken to Theresienstadt before the production opened. Hoffmeister was the only one to escape. By 1943, Freudenfeld and his son were also taken to Theresienstadt, and the production was remounted in the barrack attic of Block L 417. The original artistic team recreated their parts of production and cast children being held in the camp in the roles. The opera was produced about 55 times in Theresienstadt. Krása was transported to Auschwitz and executed there on October 17, 1944. Theresienstadt was liberated by the Allies in 1945.


BULLYING

Brundibár is a bully. People bully for many reasons, often to eliminate competition or elevate one’s standing. “Too tall. Too skinny. Too short. Too fat. Wrong hair or skin color. Wrong race. Wrong gender. Wrong sexual orientation. Wrong nationality, etc."

Bullying is a rampant problem in the schools today. It is never ok to bully, whether on the playground or on a national level. The children in Brundibár are victorious because they work together as a team and support each other. They are chided by a bellowing organ grinder. But he does not win the day!

PROPAGANDA


The word "propaganda" is defined as ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause (according to Merriam-Webster).

Propaganda is one of the big themes running through World War II. The concentration camp, Theresienstadt (German name or Terezín in Czech), functioned for four years (beginning in November 1941) as a ghetto work camp and then a transporting station to Auschwitz, a famous concentration camp. German, Czech, Dutch, and Danish Jews were sent there because Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Germany and chief of the Nazi Party, hated the Jews. The Jews had to wear yellow stars to indicate they were Jewish. The elderly, gypsies, and prominent artists could be sent to Auschwitz, too. One survivor said, “If Auschwitz was hell, Theresienstadt was the anteroom.” In 1943, Danish Jews were sent to Theresienstadt, and the Danish government demanded information about them. In 1944, the Germans created a hoax to fool the Red Cross and Danish delegation into believing that life for the prisoners was great. Deportations to Auschwitz were intensified to make the ghetto less crowded, gardens were planted, walls were washed, and houses were painted. There were goods in the store windows. Brundibár was performed with new, brightly colored sets. The head of the Jewish council was even asked to wear a top hat. Theresienstadt looked like a nice, working community where people were treated well.

Helga Pollak Kinsky, who was a child in the cast, remembers marching and singing with garden instruments when Hitler decided to use Theresienstadt in a propaganda film to help cover up the horror of the war (although the film was never released). She also remembers getting a snack and playing with toys for just one day. After the performance of Brundibár for the film, many of the children in the show were sent away to Auschwitz. Music, like many other cultural elements, had been used to help fool the world, and the Nazis didn’t see it as necessary anymore. Most composers and conductors were also sent to Auschwitz after this “feat” for the Nazis.

Regardless of propaganda, musical expression helped young people continue to grow and learn in Theresienstadt, while providing the adults some sense of normalcy in a harsh, dark world. Music allowed them to express themselves and create beauty in the face of horror!

Ella Stein Weissberger, who played the cat in every production, says “As the opera drew to its close, and we sang the finale, there was—each time—thunderous applause which lasted so long that we almost had to be ejected from the hall. We all wanted to completely exhaust that moment of freedom. When we were on stage, it was the only time we were allowed to remove our yellow stars.”

USING MUSIC TO BRIDGE CULTURAL DIVIDES

William Harvey, who will perform with the Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra on Saturday, Nov. 19, at 8 p.m. at the Grove Theater, is the violin and viola teacher at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM). Born in the United States with degrees from the prestigious Juilliard School of Music in New York City and Indiana University, he has performed solo with orchestras in Carnegie Hall (in a performance reviewed by the New York Times) and Alice Tully Hall. He has served as concertmaster of the Spokane Symphony and the Juilliard Orchestra, faculty member of the Indiana University String Academy, performer at the Las Vegas Music Festival, and soloist with the Manila Symphony Orchestra and Music Academy of the West. Harvey founded and directs Cultures in Harmony, a nonprofit that has conducted 21 projects in 11 countries to promote cultural understanding through music. In Pakistan, he led a concert tour of seven schools, spoke about Pakistani-American friendship on national TV, lectured at Aga Khan University, and performed with rock band Irtaash and rapper Adil Omar.

Cultures in Harmony (see videos) has created compositions with AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe, underprivileged girls in Egypt, and the Yoro tribe in Papua New Guinea. Workshops for young classical musicians have benefited thousands of students throughout Africa and Asia. Harvey studied violin with Mimi Zweig and Ronald Copes. His compositions have received more than 100 performances, and he has conducted orchestras in the Philippines, Qatar, Mexico, and the United States.

As the winner of Juilliard's concerto competition, William Harvey gave the New York premiere of Iranian composer Behzad Ranjbaran's Violin Concerto in Alice Tully Hall, with the Juilliard Orchestra conducted by Gerard Schwarz. He will play this piece with the Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra on Nov. 19.

To see a video of William Harvey playing the violin in other venues, click here.

Wielding a Violin for Change in Afghanistan
 By Bina Shah

KARACHI, Pakistan (Aug. 9, 2010) -- William Harvey is a slight young man with a shock of brown hair, glasses and a gentle, unassuming air. But when this Juilliard-trained violinist takes the stage, he's the biggest man in the room. And that's a good thing, given the monumental task he's taken on: using music to bridge cultural divides, both as founder of a unique musical outreach program and as a violin teacher at the newly inaugurated Afghanistan National Institute of Music in Kabul.

Harvey gave a series of concerts in Pakistan this month to raise funds for girls wanting to learn music at the institute -- a double impossibility under the Taliban, which rigidly enforced bans on both female education and music. But his commitment to expanding the social impact of music hardly started there.

Harvey arrived in New York City from Indiana to begin his studies at Juilliard just days before the Sept. 11 attacks, and he soon found himself playing his violin for soldiers who had been working at ground zero and were "seeing things that nobody should have to see," he says. That concert's evident impact on those soldiers changed Harvey's life, he says, making him realize that music belongs not just in the concert hall, but as a central part of life, uniting people across cultures and countries.
   
With this principle in mind, Harvey called up the U.S. State Department, innocently asking if it would be interested in sending him on a tour to Afghanistan to play music there. The reply he got was less than charitable, in his own words: "We don't send musicians on tour, you'd have to pay for yourself, and by the way, there's a war on. Goodbye!" But Harvey didn't give up, and in 2005, he set up Cultures in Harmony, a nonprofit organization that aims to promoting cultural understanding through music. Harvey and his team have conducted 11 projects in 19 countries, sending what he calls "musical diplomats" to countries such as Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Cameroon, and Egypt.

The organization has received funding from the State Department, the Samuels Foundation, the Copland Fund, and private individuals. Harvey and his musical diplomats have held master classes for aspiring musicians in many countries, at the same time availing themselves of opportunities to learn about other countries' musical traditions. Collaborating with sarangi players in Pakistan, mvet players in Cameroon, and kundu drummers in Papua New Guinea has taught them about the musical styles from these diverse cultures, while demonstrating to their audiences that Americans are eager to learn from others rather than just stay arrogant and aloof, as a common stereotype goes.

His work for Cultures in Harmony, however, "didn't pay the rent," Harvey says, so he began looking for gainful employment. He saw an ad for musicians to teach in Afghanistan's newly established National Institute of Music. Under the leadership of Dr. Ahmad Sarmast, a dedicated Afghan musician and educator, the school is a project of Afghanistan's Ministry of Education, with funding from the World Bank, the Goethe Institute, and other organizations.

Harvey applied for the job and was accepted, so he set off for Kabul in March 2010 unsure of what to expect. He was pleasantly surprised on his first day in Afghanistan. "I get there on March 21 and the entire country throws a party for me ... well, OK, it wasn't connected," he says, conceding with a wry smile that his arrival coincided with the celebrations of Navroze, the Persian new year, when Afghans flock to the streets to picnic with their families.   

In just a few short months, Harvey is convinced his work has already made an impact on the students at the institute, which encourages orphans and street children to learn music for free. One of his students, a young girl, used to subsist by selling chewing gum on the streets.

The institute accepted her as a student and began to pay the girl slightly more money than she made selling gum; she's now one of 20 students who learn violin from Harvey in a beautiful wood-floored soundproof studio. A well-stocked library and "5 tons of musical instruments" donated by the Germans greet students, who are most eager to learn guitar, percussion, piano and violin. "But we're really encouraging them to learn the classical instruments of Afghanistan as well: rubab, sitar, sarod, tabla."
  
The program is still in its infancy and faces financial challenges along with the other daily uncertainties of life in Kabul. But Harvey is confident about its future, especially under the guidance of Sarmast, who Harvey says has done a "wonderful job" marshaling resources to promote music in Afghanistan. "I'm very optimistic about the future of the institute," he says. "And it's a lot of fun being in Afghanistan." And the picture of joy and harmony he got a glimpse of back in March remains a beacon for the future, he suggests. "The day that I got there, I really did see the country at its best."

Lydian String Quartet (Saturday, Nov. 5, 8 p.m., Pollard Auditorium)

The musicians are Daniel Stepner, Judith Eissenberg, Mary Ruth Ray, and Joshua Gordon. To learn more about them and the history of the quartet, click here.

Dan Landrum, a hammered dulcimer player living in Chattanooga who was a featured member of Yanni's touring orchestra, was the featured artist at the opening concert of the Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra on Saturday, Sept. 17, at Oak Ridge High School Performing Arts Center. He performed with ORSO Zoltan Kodály's "Intermezzo and Song" (1926) from the folk opera Háry János. He also played his original composition "Entertaining Fish" with a drummer and another piece titled "Spring Fever."

Born in 1961 in Kennett, Missouri, Landrum is an American hammered dulcimer player who resides in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He was discovered busking in front of the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga and, as a result, became a featured member of Yanni's touring orchestra. He began touring with Yanni during the 2003-2004 Ethnicity world tour. He also appears on the 2006 live album and video Yanni Live! The Concert Event. He has performed at the Hollywood Bowl and Carnegie Hall in New York City. In November 2006 Landrum became the owner and editor of Dulcimer Players News after purchasing the magazine from Madeline MacNeil.

To see a video of Dan Landrum playing at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, click here.