“There are places that open only to music” goes a Jewish saying; and maybe the coming Season of Jewish Music in Milwaukee will find some of them. Or so hopes project coordinator Joshua Richman, who since 1997 has been seeking different ways to combine his interests in Judaism and music.
This series of three concerts, which has been two years in the planning, “seeks to unite the Jewish and non-Jewish communities through a medium of expression that many relate to,” Richman, 27, told The Chronicle in a recent interview. Moreover, he hopes the series will succeed in “sparking an interest in Judaism in general through the medium of music, which is perhaps less intimidating than other media.”
Richman said the series also seeks to provide “a rich opportunity for collaboration among Jewish agencies” and to encourage “links and collaborations of the Jewish community with other religious and arts groups.”
The series will begin with a program featuring young performers on Sunday, Dec. 21, 7 p.m. (the third evening of Chanukah) in the Helen Bader Concert Hall of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Zelazo Center for the Performing Arts, 2419 E. Kenwood Blvd.
It comprises three works, including one world premier. Performers include high school instrumentalists, many of them current members or veterans of the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra; young veterans of First Stage Children’s Theater, the Milwaukee Children’s Choir and various community and school performing groups.
It also provides Richman an opportunity to work with some long-standing friends. For example, he has known Milwaukee mime-actress-teacher-director-choreographer Nancy Weiss-McQuide since he was a child.
At his invitation, she is creating her own Jewish-themed mime-dance piece to the chamber version of Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring.” Of her work with five middle and high school age performers whom she called “seasoned vets” of area children’s and community theaters, she said, “I’ve worked with them in other productions over the years and found them to be outstanding young performers.”
Children’s opera
For the climactic work of the performance, Richman called in David Rentz, whom he met when they were both students at Whitefish Bay High School. Rentz, who is now working on a doctorate in choral conducting at Yale University, will direct a semi-staged performance of the children’s opera “Brundibar” by Czech Jewish composer Hans Krasa.
This opera has become famous as an example of Holocaust art because it was performed under Krasa’s direction by Jewish children in the Terezin ghetto during World War II. It is about two children who need to buy milk for their sick mother and try to earn money by singing on a public street; but the bullying organ grinder Brundibar tries to stop them.
The work makes no open references to either Judaism or the Nazis. Still, said Rentz in an interview before a rehearsal with the instrumental ensemble, Brundibar clearly “represents tyranny and oppression of some kind.”
Rentz said he is “having a great time” working with the some 70 children who will be performing it. “They learn quickly, they are enthusiastic, they have acute musical ears. And they’ve got ideas and are not afraid to share them,” he said.
The program will open with the world premier of “Return!” for chamber orchestra, narrator and chorus by Jonathan Mordechai Leshnoff. Leshnoff had arranged music by Milwaukeean Rabbi Michel Twerski for a Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concert that Richman helped coordinate in 2000.
For that event, said Richman, he worked with Rabbi Benzion Twerski and the MSO’s then-executive director Steven Ovitsky. It was also at that event that Richman began to conceive the idea for the new series, and Twerski, Ovitsky and Leshnoff helped in its early evolution. Richman added that both Rabbis Twerski and Rabbi Mendel Senderovic, dean of the Milwaukee Kollel Center for Jewish Studies, are supervising “all of the halachic aspects of this project.”
But the series is a family project as well, involving Richman’s parents, Fran and Steve. As advisor to the project, Steve said, “What I’ve found enjoyable about it is that it involves a number of agencies in the Jewish and artistic communities. Several of them our whole family cares deeply about.”
These include not only the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, of which Steve is former board chair, and the MYSO, of which Fran is executive director and Joshua is special projects coordinator; but also the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, of which Steve is a past president. “The project has given an opportunity for all these agencies to collaborate on something positive for the artistic community and the Jewish community,” said Steve.
The other two programs in the series are scheduled for this spring and are sponsored by the Helen Bader Foundation. A chamber music concert is slated for March 22-23, 7:30 p.m., at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. The climactic concert is scheduled to feature the MSO on April 18, 7:30 p.m.
The series also has an educational component, in which Joshua Richman and other participants will speak and play excerpts of the featured works at schools and other venues to help prepare adults and children for the programs.
Funding for the series also comes from the Jewish Community Foundation, the endowment development program of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation. Steve Richman added that the Harry & Rose Samson Family JCC has helped to coordinate the “general marketing and other costs of putting everything together.” The Coalition for Jewish Learning, the federation’s education program, has also been one of the “indispensable partners” for the project.
Moreover, the Jewish community will be able to receive some financial benefit from the April program. Steve said that all MJF constituent agencies and area Jewish schools and synagogues will be able to sell tickets for that program and keep 40 percent of the proceeds for their organization.
For more information about the series, call Joshua Richman, 414-873-0779; or Micki Seinfeld, director of special events at the JCC, 414-967-8235.
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