Los Angeles Jewish Symphony Will Host 30th Anniversary Celebration

 The Los Angeles Jewish Symphony will celebrate 30 years presenting music of the Jewish experience on Sunday, April 14 at 7:30pm with its 30th Anniversary Celebration, a retrospective concert at Wilshire Boulevard Temple’s newly renovated Resnick Family Campus. 

The evening will include featured performances by LAJS Founding Concertmaster Mark Kashper and several longtime friends of the LAJS: Cantor Lisa Peicott, Cantor Ilan Davidson, and young artist Eden Kontesz.  Dr. Noreen Green is the Founding Artistic Director and Conductor of LAJS.

The concert offers a journey through the earliest years of the Symphony. The sanctuary at the Resnick Family Campus, originally known as University Synagogue, was the site of the debut LAJS concert in 1994. The program will feature a repertoire drawn from throughout the Symphony’s 30-year history, with pieces and composers that exemplify the breadth and importance of the LAJS’s mission.

Dr. Green says, "We are thrilled to be collaborating with Wilshire Blvd Temple, in the room where it all started for the LAJS. The newly remodeled Sanctuary at the Brentwood campus was the site of our debut concert! Wonderful memories of our early years flood my soul, and I look forward to sharing those memories and creating new ones."

The evening’s featured work “Symphony of the Holocaust” was composed by Holocaust survivor Shony Alex Braun (1930-2002), who worked closely with Maestra Green during the later years of his life. Braun crafted the work from the melodies he composed in his head during his time in the World War II concentration camps.  

The symphony is the subject of the recent and well-reviewed documentary of the same name and features the LAJS, conducted by Maestra Green, with Founding Concertmaster Mark Kashper as violin soloist; Kashper will reprise his featured performance for the 30th Anniversary Celebration.  [“Symphony of the Holocaust” documentary can be screened at https://watch.sunnstream.com/checkout/subscribe/purchase]

Opening the concert will be Andrea Clearfield’s “Prayer” to acknowledge the pain of all who are suffering. Founding Concertmaster Kashper, Cantor Peicott, soprano and Cantor Davidson, tenor (speaking), are all featured as soloists during the opening piece. Cantors Peicott and Davidson (singing), also reprise some favorites from Symphony concerts past throughout the evening, including selections from the early University Synagogue concert Symphony on Broadway.

The program will also include works by Marc Lavry, Lucas Richman, Kurt Weill, and more, as well as a tribute to the LAJS’s longstanding commitment to music education and nurturing young Jewish talent. Thirteen-year-old phenom Eden Kontesz, daughter of Grammy Award-winning composer Sharon Farber, will perform Tzivka Pik’s “Light a Candle.” Kontesz first appeared with the LAJS at the age of six, performing as part of the Symphony’s annual education program A Patchwork of Cultures: Exploring the Sephardic-Latino Connection. 

Farber’s arrangement of the iconic “Yerushalayim Shel Zahav” (“Jerusalem of Gold”), composed by Naomi Shemer, Will Close out the evening. With its declaration of love and poignant message of hope for the Jewish people, “Jerusalem of Gold” is considered to be an unofficial anthem for Israel.

The concert begins at 7:30 PM, with a dessert reception to follow at 9:00 PM. Individual tickets start at $36 for general admission; sponsor and tribute book ad packages are also available. Program subject to change.  Wilshire Boulevard Temple Resnick Family Campus is at 11960 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, Ca 90049.

For more sponsorship information and to purchase tickets, visit www.lajs.org/30th-anniversary or call 818.646.2844.