Our Logo

The Pro Musica Hebraica logo is derived from an image by the Russian Jewish artist B. Solomonov originally featured on the program to a concert of the Society for Jewish Folk Music.

The original concert took place on April 4, 1915 in the city of Kharkov. The Russian-lettered text indicates that this was the cover sheet to a program for a “Concert Evening of Jewish National Compositions” in Kharkov co-sponsored by the local branch of the Society for the Promotion of the Enlightenment among the Jews of Russia.

The artist’s imagery is typical of the early twentieth-century Jewish art movement that also included such masters as Marc Chagall, Ephraim Lillien, Leonid Pasternak, and Solomon Yudovin.

The original drawing aptly reflects the complex identity of Russian Jewish artists, combining several different images: the Zionist pioneers plowing the renewed Jewish homeland, with hints of the walls of Jerusalem in the background; iconic motifs from medieval European Jewish folk art, including the winged lions also found in some East European synagogues; the Hellenistic columns suggesting the secular Jewish embrace of the legacy of Greek art; and the female muse herself, with a lyre evoking biblical King David and his psalms.

This image was recovered from a copy preserved in the personal archive of composer Mikhail Gnesin (1883-1957). We are grateful to the Russian State Archives of Literature and Art in Moscow for permission to revive this image as the Pro Musica Hebraica logo.

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