performing the jewish archive out of the shadows · ‘out of the shadows’ in leeds and york...

Performing the Jewish Archive

Out of the ShadowsRediscovering Jewish music and theatre

A festival in Leeds and YorkApril - June 2016

CONTENTS

03. WELCOME

04. OUT OF THE SHADOWS

16. ART EXHIBITION

18. HOW TO BOOK

20. VENUE INFORMATION

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2 CITIES, 8 VENUES, 20 PERFORMANCES, 8 WORLD PREMIERES!

‘Out of the Shadows’ in Leeds and York features cabaret, chamber music and songs from the Terezín ghetto, choral music by émigré composers, a powerful oratorio of Jewish suffering and redemption from the Helsinki Jewish archives, a rare opportunity to view drawings by children in the Terezín ghetto, and much more besides.

We are extremely proud to present the world premiere of a recently-discovered piece for harp by Gideon Klein, and the European premiere of piano pieces by 12-year-old prodigy Josima Feldschuh; both these composer-performers perished during the Holocaust. All of this is framed by performances of The Smoke of Home in York’s Clifford’s Tower (16 & 17 April), and the world premieres of newly-composed opera scenes based on Jewish archival materials (23 June).

The festival features several internationally-renowned ensembles: The Nash Ensemble of London, the New Budapest Orpheum Society from Chicago, and cello-piano duo Noreen and Phillip Silver from Maine, USA. Alongside these groups we feature more local performers - the Cassia String Quartet, The Clothworkers Consort of Leeds, Leeds University Union Chamber Choir, soprano Kate Rotheroe, and students of the Royal Northern College of Music.

The Performing the Jewish Archive project (www.ptja.leeds.ac.uk), under whose auspices this festival is produced, seeks to inject new life into recently rediscovered musical and theatrical works by Jewish artists, many of which were thought to have been lost, or have languished in obscurity until recently.

At the heart of the project are five International Performance Festivals. Spanning the globe, these take us from Madison, US (May 2016), to Leeds and York, UK (April & June 2016), the Czech Republic (September 2016), Sydney, Australia (August 2017), and Cape Town, South Africa (September 2017). ‘Out of the Shadows’ promises to be a memorable and poignant month’s events celebrating the lives and achievements of Jewish artists in times of both adversity and freedom, and we hope you can join us.

Dr Stephen MuirPrincipal Investigator, Performing the Jewish Archive

THE SMOKE OF HOMESaturday 16 April, 8:00pm & 9:30pm Sunday 17 April, 8:00pm & 9:30pmClifford’s Tower, YorkThe Smoke of Home is a recently rediscovered 45-minute play written in the Terezín (Theresienstadt) ghetto. With this suspenseful historical allegory set in the Thirty Year’s War, the play’s two young authors confront a question their fellow prisoners could not bear to face: if we survive, will we have a home to return to?

Tickets: £15 (adults) £12 (over 60s) £8 (under 18s, students and unwaged)*Please note that this event is outdoors, not accessible by wheelchair, and will be standing only.


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It is especially appropriate that this particularly disturbing theatrical performance is taking place in York’s iconic Clifford’s

Tower. In 1190, the York Jewish community took refuge in the tower from a mob. Unable to escape, they committed mass suicide, and

the tower was set alight. The survivors were murdered.

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GIDEON KLEIN: PORTRAIT OF A COMPOSERCassia QuartetWednesday 1 June, 7:30pmHoly Trinity Church, LeedsUsing actors, live music and visuals, this programme presents an intimate, moving, and sometimes humorous portrait of the Czech-born composer and pianist, tragically murdered at the age of 25 in Auschwitz. With music by Gideon Klein himself, as well as his beloved Mozart, it brings to life recently-discovered first-hand accounts of Klein’s pre-war musical activities in Prague, as well as testimony by himself and others detailing musical activities in Terezín.

Tickets: £10 (adults) £8 (over 60s) £5 (under 18s, students and unwaged)

Pre-concert talk - 6:30pm: Actress and playwright Vanessa Rosenthal hosts an audience with Terezín survivor Zdenka Fantlova, who knew Gideon Klein, and whose book The Tin Ring chronicles her experiences in the Terezín ghetto. *This concert will be followed by an introduction to the Children’s Drawings from the Terezín Ghetto Art Exhibition.

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Cassia Quartet

HARLEQUIN IN THE GHETTOThursday 2 June - Sunday 5 June, 7:30pmThe Black Box, Department of Theatre, Film and Television, University of YorkIn 1942, a young prisoner in the Terezín ghetto wrote a commedia dell’arte-inspired play: would Harlequin, the lovable clown, escape the clutches of the Capitano? This new production, based on preserved fragments of the script, and performed by students of The University of York and York St John University, engages with the question: what are we to make of a comedy written during the Holocaust?


Pre-performance talk - 6:00pm (on Thursday 2 June only): Professor Rebecca Rovit will speak on the Jewish Cultural League in Nazi Germany. *A question and answer session will be held after each performance.

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MAKE ONCE MORE MY HEART THY HOME: THE CHORAL MUSIC OF HANS GÁLClothworkers Consort of Leeds directed by Bryan WhiteSunday 5 June, 3:00pmClothworkers Centenary Concert Hall, LeedsFriday 10 June, 7:30pmNational Centre for Early Music, YorkHans Gál was one of a generation of Jewish composers forced to flee Austria when the Nazis invaded. This programme celebrates Gál’s love of choral music, placing his settings of Shakespeare, Blake, Shelley, and Queen Elizabeth I amidst the music he most admired - Schütz, Haydn, Schumann, Brahms.

Tickets: £10 (adults) £8 (over 60s) £5 (under 18s, students and unwaged)Pre-concert talk - 2:15pm (Leeds), 6:45pm (York): Eva Fox-Gál, daughter of Hans Gál, discusses her father’s love of choral music in conversation with Dr Stephen Muir (Leeds) and Professor Adam Gorb (York).


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Clothworkers Consort of Leeds, photo by Adam Nagus

THE NASH ENSEMBLE: MUSIC IN THE TEREZÍN GHETTOWednesday 8 June, 7:15pmHoward Assembly Room, LeedsDescribed as ‘chamber music royalty’ (Sunday Times) and perhaps the most ‘polished, stylish, characterful chamber group on the planet’ (Herald Scotland), the Nash Ensemble presents music for piano, flute, clarinet and string quartet from the Terezín ghetto by Gideon Klein, Viktor Ullmann, and Hans Krása, alongside Smetana’s Bartered Bride overture, frequently performed in Terezín.

Tickets: £15 (adults) £13.50 (over 60s) £12 (under 30s, students and unwaged)

Pre-concert talk - 6:15pm: ‘Creativity in Adversity’. Dr David Fligg reflects on the curious story of how and why music flourished in the Terezín ghetto.


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The Nash Ensemble, photo by Hanya Chlala/ArenaPAL

MOTHER RACHEL AND HER CHILDREN: A REDISCOVERED ORATORIOLUUMS Chamber Choir Thursday 9 June, 7:30pmLeft Bank LeedsMother Rachel and Her Children is a long-lost oratorio from Finland written originally in Yiddish in 1948 by Helsinki-born Jac Weinstein (1883-1976). The piece takes the audience on a journey with scenes from two thousand years of suffering of the Jewish people that culminates in the death camps of the Third Reich. Yet the journey ends in messianic panoramas for a glorious future. This piece is performed to a backdrop of paintings by Czech artist Ivan Bukovský.


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‘Still Life with Doll’ by Ivan Bukovský


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FRACTURED LIVES: MUSIC OF THE HOLOCAUSTNoreen Silver (cello) Phillip Silver (piano) Tuesday 14 June, 7:30pmHoly Trinity Church, LeedsWednesday 15 June, 1:00pm All Saints Pavement, YorkA concert of music for piano and cello by composers caught up in the horrors of the Holocaust, including the European premiere of piano pieces by 12-year-old prodigy Josima Feldschuh, who perished in Warsaw.

Tickets (Leeds): £10 (adults) £8 (over 60s) £5 (under 18s, students and unwaged)

Admission Free (York)

Hans Gál, Josima Feldschuh (courtesy of Nekamia Ben-Shem Feldschuh), Paul Ben-Haim


THE NEW BUDAPEST ORPHEUM SOCIETY: JEWISH CABARET TRADITIONThursday 16 June, 7:30pm National Centre for Early Music, YorkSaturday 18 June, 7:30pmClothworkers Centenary Concert Hall, LeedsThe Grammy-nominated New Budapest Orpheum Society, Ensemble-in-Residence at the University of Chicago, draws upon a wide range of repertoires, many forgotten, others preserved in European archives, all bearing witness to the great tradition of Jewish cabaret. The NBOS will perform pieces from their repertoire and works recently rediscovered by Performing the Jewish Archive researchers.


Pre-concert talk - 6:45pm: ‘From archive to stage: a Cabaret revival’. New Budapest Orpheum Society’s Philip Bohlman and Ilya Levinson join ‘Out of the Shadows’ researchers Lisa Peschel and Simo Muir for a discussion of the process involved in bringing archival research to the stage in performances such as this evening’s show.


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The New Budapest Orpheum SocietyDon Stille (accordion) Julia Bentley (mezzo soprano) Stewart Figa (baritone) Philip Bohlman (artistic director) Iordanka Kissiova (violin) Ilya Levinson (piano, music director) Mark Sonksen (bass) Danny Howard (percussion)

FATE AND FAIRYTALES: THE MUSIC OF WILHELM GROSZ AND ZIKMUND SCHULKate Rotheroe (soprano) Rhian Hughes (flute) Ian Buckle (piano) The Cassia Quartet Friday 17 June, 1:05pmClothworkers Centenary Concert Hall, LeedsA concert of chamber works by two composers in very different conditions of exile, Grosz and Schul, and a world premiere of a work for harp by Gideon Klein, composed when he was 15.

Admission FreePre-concert talk - 12:30pm: Performing the Jewish Archive researcher Dr Joseph Toltz explores the lives and music of Wilhelm Grosz and Zikmund Schul.


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‘Fairies’ by Hilda Miller

A CHRONICLE OF LOVE AND DEATHPhilip V. Bohlman (narrator) Christine Wilkie Bohlman (piano) Friday 17 June, 6:00pmHoly Trinity Church, LeedsViktor Ullmann’s Chronicle of Love and Death of the Flag-Bearer Christoph Rilke was completed ten days before his deportation to Auschwitz. One of the most profound love-death works of the twentieth century, Ullmann’s melodrama follows a young man to war, coming of age, and finally death in seventeenth-century Eastern Europe.

Admission Free


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@Cattallina/Shutterstock

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LOOKING FORWARD THROUGH THE PAST: NEW OPERAS FROM THE JEWISH ARCHIVE

Thursday 23 June, 8:00pmClothworkers Centenary Concert Hall, LeedsMelissa Douglas ‘Kristallnacht’Johanna Marx ‘Second-Hand Smoke’Mark Turner ‘The Cantor’s Lament’Daniel Lim ‘Manes’ Faus’Charlotte Marlow ‘Echoes of Terezín’Eldad Diament ‘Herr Ludwig: Der Leiter meines Vaterlandes’Anna Appleby ‘The Attic’ Singers: Charlotte Mason, Freya Holliman, Ingvild Schultze-Florey, Matthew Palfreyman, Edwin Kaye, Tim Bagley Repetiteur: Rachel Fright

Students from the University of Leeds and the Royal Northern College of Music present a programme of newly-composed opera scenes depicting stories of Jewish migration, internment and exile. Based upon the latest archival discoveries, produced by Professor Adam Gorb and Dr Stephen Muir.

Admission Free

Abstract colour composition, unknown artist, Terezin 1943-44. Jewish Museum in Prague, OBJECT.JMP.COLL / 133012

Wednesday 1 June - Monday 20 June Holy Trinity Church, Leeds Some 15,000 children were imprisoned in the the Terezín ghetto near Prague. All but 132 of them perished. Rarely seen outside Prague, this selection of drawings made by the children of Terezín is a poignant reminder of the youthful potential that was cruelly cut short in the Holocaust.

Admission Free

*Please see festival website for opening times.

ART EXHIBITION: CHILDREN’S DRAWINGS FROM THE TEREZÍN GHETTO


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Images (L-R, clockwise): ‘Concert in the Dormitory’, ‘Children Going to Lessons’, ‘Arrival in Terezín’. All courtesy of Helga Weissova

Tickets can be purchased in the following ways:

OnlineTickets can be booked and paid for online via the festival website: ptja.leeds.ac.uk/festivals/leeds-york-2016

Telephone Tickets can be bought over the phone using debit/credit card by calling: 0113 343 2584. Please note that this number is not staffed full-time. If there is no one available to take your call please leave a message and Festival Coordinator Jessica Ward will call you back to discuss your requirements.

On the DoorRemaining tickets are available on the door from 30 minutes before the start of each event.

HOW TO BOOK


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ContactsTelephone: 0113 343 2581Email: [email protected]

SeatingSeating for all performances is unreserved, unless otherwise stated. Please note that Clifford’s Tower is standing only.

Accessibility The festival performances are taking place in a number of different venues in Leeds and York. Information about accessibility can be obtained directly from each venue (please see p.20 for venue contact details).

Alternatively, please contact us on: 0113 343 2581 or email: [email protected] and we will be able to advise you. Car parking and public transport The festival performances are taking place in a number of different venues in Leeds and York. Information about car parking and public transport can be obtained directly from each venue (please see p.20 for venue contact details).

Alternatively, please contact us on: 0113 343 2581 or email: [email protected] and we will be able to advise you.

Programme detailsPublished details are correct at the time of going to press. We reserve the right to vary the programme in the case of unforeseen circumstances and will provide due notice wherever possible. Please check our website or telephone us for the most up-to-date programme information.

Join us online The ‘Out of the Shadows’ festival is online! For news, reviews, exclusive ticket deals, audio and video clips, photos and lots more, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, visit our website and sign up to our newsletter mailing list. Facebook: www.facebook.com/performingthejewisharchive

Twitter: @PtJArchive #LeedsYorkFest

Website: ptja.leeds.ac.uk/festivals/leeds-york-2016

Newsletter: Subscribe to our newsletter on our website: ptja.leeds.ac.uk

GENERAL INFORMATION

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Clothworkers Centenary Concert HallSchool of MusicUniversity of LeedsLeeds LS2 9JT0113 343 [email protected] concerts.leeds.ac.uk

Holy Trinity Church Boar LaneLeeds LS1 6HW07961 [email protected] holytrinityleeds.co.uk

Howard Assembly RoomOpera North Grand Theatre46 New BriggateLeeds LS1 6NU0113 243 [email protected] operanorth.co.uk/howard-assembly-room

Left Bank LeedsCardigan RoadLeeds LS6 1LJ07541 [email protected] leftbankleeds.org.uk

All Saints PavementHigh OusegateYork YO1 8RZallsaintspavement.org.uk

Black Box TheatreDepartment of Theatre, Film and Television University of York Baird Lane Heslington East York YO10 5GB 01904 [email protected]/tftv/facilities-hire/black-box

Clifford’s TowerTower StreetYork YO1 9SA01904 [email protected]/visit/places/cliffords-tower-york

National Centre for Early Music St Margaret’s ChurchWalmgateYork Y01 9TL01904 [email protected] ncem.co.uk

LEEDS VENUES YORK VENUES


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OVER 100 FREE EVENTS TO EDUCATE, ENTERTAIN & INSPIRE

yorkfestivalofideas.com

7 to 19 June

Highlights include:• RevealingtheAncientWorld• MysteriousMindsandBothersomeBodies• FutureofFood• ScienceoutoftheLab

Speakers include:• ComedianSarahPascoe• HistorianTomHolland• JudgeBaronessBrendaHale• EconomistJohnKay

OVER 100 FREE EVENTS TO EDUCATE, ENTERTAIN & INSPIRE

yorkfestivalofideas.com

7 to 19 June

Highlights include:• RevealingtheAncientWorld• MysteriousMindsandBothersomeBodies• FutureofFood• ScienceoutoftheLab

Speakers include:• ComedianSarahPascoe• HistorianTomHolland• JudgeBaronessBrendaHale• EconomistJohnKay

SYDNEYCONSERVATORIUMOF MUSIC

University of LeedsLeeds, United Kingdom

LS2 9JTTel. 0113 243 1751

www.leeds.ac.uk

performing the jewish archive out of the shadows · ‘out of the shadows’ in leeds and york...

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