Sun 9/27
The tales were passed down through the generations. “They got off the train at Auschwitz and they heard music. A little orchestra playing, right there on the railroad tracks. They looked at each other as if to say, ‘There’s music here… how bad could it be?'”
Many millions did not survive the Nazi concentration camps. But a few of their violins did. Pieced back together assiduously over the past few decades by violin maker Amnon Weinstein, who lost 400 family members in the camps, these Violins of Hope now live on in the hands of some of the best musicians ever assembled.
Former child actor and broadcast mogul Milton Maltz and wife Tamar dedicated themselves to a 145,000 square foot renovation of the historic “gold dome” Temple Tifereth-Israel, unique in its combination of preservation and innovation, into a state-of-the-art performing arts center for Case Western Reserve University.
For this historic Grand Opening collaboration on Sun 9/27, the Cleveland Orchestra, led by Austrian-born music director Franz Welser-Möst performed a concert that opened with Beethoven’s “Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus,” included a moving Kol Nidre by Arnold Schoenberg and narrated by Thomas Hampson, and featured Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with soloist Shlomo Mintz playing one of the rescued Violins of Hope, as were numerous members of the Cleveland Orchestra. Collaborators on Violins of Hope Cleveland include the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, the Cleveland Orchestra, Facing History and Ourselves, Case Western Reserve University, the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, and ideastream public broadcasting.
And there is more to follow: an exhibition, Violins of Hope, takes place at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage from 10/2- 1/3/16; an exhibition of photos of Amnon Weinstein by Daniel Levin is held at the Roe Green Gallery of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland; a concert, “Music of the Violins of Hope” takes place at Severance Hall on 10/14/15; a lecture at the Maltz Museum on 10/22/15; a concert of the Israel Philharmonic at Severance Hall on 11/16/15; and a documentary to be broadcast on ideastream/WVIZ PBS on the evening of 2/8/16.
On hand were leaders from all walks of Cleveland life, along with special guests. We captured some of the pre-concert activity and the post-concert reception.
View the PHOTOSTREAM here.
@CWRU @CleveOrchestra @CIM_edu @MaltzMuseum @ideastream @WCPN @WVIZ @JewishCleveland @FacingHistory
