Bringing Jewish music to the concert hall

Reviewing the best classical albums of the year, the Boston Globe’s Jeremy Eichler names Chamber Works by Jerzy Fitelberg by ARC Ensemble (Artists of the Royal Conservatory of Canada) the “biggest surprise” of the year:

Thanks to the ARC Ensemble for retrieving another forgotten modern voice. In these premiere recordings, one discovers the piquant and surprisingly distinctive sound world of Fitelberg, showing once more how many worthy scores remain to be excavated from the rubble of a century.

The ARC Ensemble’s recent album includes Fitelberg’s String Quartet No. 2 (1928), which the ARC Ensemble performed in Pro Musica Hebraica’s Spring 2015 concert.

The recordings are available on Amazon.

The Polish modernist Jerzy Fitelberg was extolled by the great composers of his day. And yet it is only now, six decades after the great Jewish composer’s death, that his work is being recognized. Simon Wynberg, artistic director of the ARC Ensemble, sheds light on the puzzle in Mosaic:

Why have these initiatives had to wait so many years? Part of the explanation resides in the repercussions of World War II. Like so many exiled musicians who found refuge in America, Fitelberg lost not just family and friends but much of his musical network and cultural constituency. Nor, for him as for others, was return an attractive option. While extended separation enabled Polish émigrés like Fitelberg to develop a more cosmopolitan sensibility, in the end neither Poland nor the United States assumed ownership of their music. More personally, Fitelberg’s early death may also have been a factor in the relative negligence of his work in particular.

Pro Musica Hebraica’s spring 2015 concert — Before The Night: Jewish Classical Masterpieces of Pre-1933 Europe — included the ARC’s powerful performance of Fitelberg’s second string quartet, its American premiere. The Ensemble’s new album of Fitelberg’s chamber works is now on sale.

The Washington Post reviews our latest concert, Piety and Passion: The Musical Legacy of Jewish Spain:

For nearly a decade, Pro Musica Hebraica has championed Jewish classical music by presenting concerts filled with forgotten gems. On Monday evening at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, its first foray into Sephardic musical traditions proved timely and celebratory, with the Amernet String Quartet and two guest artists transporting listeners to medieval Spain.

Read the rest here.

Nearly two years after Evgeny Kissin’s “stunning performance” at Pro Musica Hebraica’s widely acclaimed concert at the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall, the great pianist continues to use his gifts to give new life to Jewish music.

This December at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Kissin will once again perform some of the rare works by Jewish composers and recite the Yiddish poetry that was praised by audiences and critics in Pro Musica Hebraica’s February 2014 concert, An Evening of Jewish Music and Poetry.

For more information on the December 16 performance, visit Carnegie Hall’s website.

On Monday, November 16, at 9 PM, WETA’s Front Row Washington will broadcast Pro Musica Hebraica’s Winter 2014 concert, Zion’s Muse: Three Generations of Israeli Composers, featuring the young Israeli virtuosos of Ariel Quartet. The award-winning ensemble performed two early classics by the founding father of Israeli classical music, German-born composer Paul Ben-Haim, together with a passionate late 1960s quartet composed by the middle generation master Mark Kopytman on the eve of his departure for Israel, and a moving spiritual meditation by contemporary composer Menachem Wiesenberg.

Washington-area residents can listen on WETA 90.9 FM. Others are free to tune in live on WETA’s website.

Click on the image for more details: