Heggie: For A Look or A Touch / Schwarz: In Memoriam / Laitman: The Seed of Dream

Featuring

Morgan Smith
Julian Patrick
Zartouhi Dombourian-Eby
Laura DeLuca
Mikhail Shmidt
Amos Yang

Craig Sheppard
Julian Schwarz
Jeannie Wells Yablonsky
Leonid Keylin
Susan Gulkis Assadi
Mara Finkelstein
Erich Parce
Mina Miller
Music of Remembrance
Jake Heggie
Gerard Schwarz
Lori Laitman

Did you know?

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Historical Context

Homosexuality was considered a crime in Germany since the late 1800s, and Paragraph 175, the pre-Nazi legislation outlawing it, remained in effect until 25 years after World War II.

Composition History

Lori Laitman's "The Seed of Dream" is a song cycle based on five poems written by Abraham Sutzkever (b. 1913), a great Yiddish poet, while he was imprisoned in the Vilna Ghetto.

Composition History

The libretto for Jake Heggie's "For a Look or a Touch" is based on entries from Manfred Lewin's journal and interviews from the documentary film "Paragraph 175."

Composition History

Gerard Schwarz's "In Memoriam" was written in memory of cellist David Tonkonogui (1958-2003), who was an inspirational teacher to Schwarz's son, Julian Schwarz.

Composition History

Jake Heggie's "For a Look or a Touch" was commissioned by Music of Remembrance, an organization dedicated to remembering Holocaust musicians and their art.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Jake Heggie, an opera composer, wanted to include a singer and a narrative in "For a Look or a Touch" but found a "vast silence" when looking for poetry or stories from the Holocaust era concerning gay persecution.

Performer Biography

Mina Miller, the pianist on Lori Laitman's "The Seed of Dream," is also the founder and Artistic Director of Music of Remembrance, the organization that commissioned these works.