Pro Musica Hebraica Inaugural Concert

Musicians of The Juilliard School featuring Itzhak Perlman
The St. Petersburg School: Centennial Concert

  • Terrace Theater
  • The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
  • Washington, D.C.
  • April 10th, 2008

Concert Summary

This concert featured some of classical music’s premier young voices from the Juilliard School of Music along with a special appearance by the legendary Itzhak Perlman, accompanied by his long-time collaborator, pianist Rohan De Silva. The performers included Juilliard’s Graduate Resident Quartet Biava String Quartet (Austin Hartman and Hyunsu Ko, violins, Mary Persin, viola, and Jason Calloway, cello) together with guest artists clarinetist Tibi Cziger, bassist Andrew Roitstein and percussionists Alexander Lipowski and Michael Caterisano and the N-E-W Trio (Andrew Wan, violin, Gal Nyska, cello, and Julio Elizalde, piano).

Works performed included several rare masterworks from the early twentieth-century Russian Jewish school of composers. These included Alexander Krein’s 1910 Jewish Sketches, #2, Joel Engel’s Dybbuk Suite (1922), Leo Zeitlin’s Eli Zion (1914), Solomon Rosowsky’s Fantastic Dance, and Mikhail Gnesin’s Requiem Trio (1943). Complementing these older pieces was a performance of composer Osvaldo Golijov’s contemporary classic, The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind (1994). For further information on these pieces, please see The Musical Tradition.

First Concert Program

Alexander Krein
Jewish Sketches #2, op. 13 (1910)
Biava String Quartet
Austin Hartman, violin
Hyunsu Ko, violin
Mary Persin, viola
Jason Calloway, cello
Tibi Cziger, clarinet
Osvaldo Golijov
The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind (1994)
Biava String Quartet
Tibi Cziger, clarinet
Intermission
Joel Engel
The Dybbuk Suite, op. 35 (1922)
Biava String Quartet
Andrew Roitstein, bass
Tibi Cziger, clarinet
Alexander Lipowski, percussion
Michael Caterisano, percussion
Mikhail Gnesin
Requiem for Our Lost Children, op. 63 (1943)
N-E-W Trio
Andrew Wan, violin
Gal Nyska, cello
Julio Elizalde, piano
Solomon Rosowsky
Fantastisher Tants, op. 6 (1914)
N-E-W Trio
Leo Zeitlin
Eli Zion (1914)
Itzhak Perlman, violin
Rohan De Silva, piano