Music Of Remembrance Brings Violins Of Hope To Seattle's Benaroya Hall

On Sunday, March 1, 2020 at 5:30 p.m., Music of Remembrance (MOR) presents a chamber music concert at Seattle's Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall featuring the historic Holocaust-era Violins of Hope instruments. This special program is part of the organization's year-long observance of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Tickets are $55 and available at www.musicofremembrance.org.

The Violins of Hope are a unique private collection of string instruments that belonged to Jews who played them before and during the Holocaust. Lovingly restored by Israeli violin makers Amnon and Avshalom Weinstein, they now sing again even though their former owners were silenced. They help keep history alive and connect us to inspiring and intimate human stories.

In a special concert, Music of Remembrance's core ensemble will perform using a quartet of these historic Violins of Hope instruments in a program that features music by composers lost to the Holocaust: David Beigelman's haunting Dybbuk Dances; string trios composed in the Terezín concentration camp by Gideon Klein and Hans Krása; and a quartet by Erwin Schulhoff. We also perform the Aria by Miecyslaw Weinberg, who suffered persecution at both Nazi and Soviet hands, and contemporary Israeli composer Betty Olivero's dazzling klezmer-infused suite from her music to the classic 1920 silent film The Golem. These musical treasures remain as a testament to inspiring courage and resilience in a time of unfathomable horrors. They tell stories that resonate today as strongly as ever.

Bringing the instruments to Seattle for this concert was made possible through MOR's partnership with Music at Kohl Mansion (Burlingame, CA), which is hosting a multi-week Violins of Hope residency in the Bay Area.