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Five Commemorative Concerts at St Paul's Church
Rectory Grove, Clapham London SW4 ODX  
posted 14 July 2007

"LIVE IN THE MOMENT, LIVE IN ETERNITY'

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe  (1749-1832)

Wednesday 22 August 2007 at 7.30pm

A commemorative violin and piano lecture recital given by the artists known as 'Duo Lorica,' to include works of Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942), Arvo Part (b.1935), John Taverner (b.1944) and Viktor Ullmann (1898-1944)

Jennifer Thorn - Violin

Jacqueline Cole - Piano

"WE SEARCH FOR THE FORGOTTEN SONG OF ANGELS'

Viktor Ullmann - Theresienstadt ghetto, June 1944

Tuesday 16 October 2007 at 7.30pm

Jacqueline Cole - Piano

A lecture recital with archive film footage to include the London Premiere of Szymon Laks' 'Sonatine' alongside Klaviersonaten of Viktor Ullmann, Gideon Klein and Siegmund Schul

"REDEEM AND BE REDEEMED"

Pavel Haas - Al Sefod - Theresienstadt ghetto 1942

Sunday 9 December 2007 at 7.30pm

Musicians and Cantors to be announced

A chamber music and lecture choral recital with archive film footage, remembering and commemorating the remarkable composers who were sent on the first transports to Theresienstadt in the winter of 1941. These include: Siegmund Schul (1916-1944); Gideon Klein (1919-1945) and Pavel Haas (1899-1944); and later in 1942 Hans Krasa (1899-1944); and in 1945 - Rudolf Karol (1880-1945).

"These brilliant people had civilisation in mind: they contributed their knowledge and insights, in their majority - though by no means all of them - as Jews. We must not only remember them, which is a cheap and superficial cliché - we must learn from them".

Yehuda Bauer, Academic Advisor, International Institute for Holocaust Research, Yad Vashem, Israel

'MNEMON - THE SLOW RETURN OF ECHOES - WAKEN TO THE MEMORY OF HEAVEN'

Jacqueline Cole, Director,Viktor Ullmann Foundation

Sunday 27 January 2008 at 7.30pm

Jacqueline Cole - Piano

A Holocaust Memorial Day concert to include works of Bach/Busoni, Olivier Messiaen, Sergei Rachmaninov, Berthold Goldschmidt; Szymon Laks and Viktor Ullmann.

The 'theme' for Holocaust Memorial Day 2008 is IMAGINE and focuses on creativity and legacy, hence this quote of Professor Herbert Thomas Mandl taken >from Elena Makarova's book titled: 'University Over The Abyss'....The story behind 520 lecturers and 2,430 lectures in KZ Theresienstadt 1942-1944

"Ullmann's opera The Emperor of Atlantis may at first sight look like an attempt to depict artistically the main characteristics of Nazism, because it uses formulations that were coined by the leading Nazis at the very end of the war.

The opera, however, never degenerates into a snapshot of this particular historical phase. It evokes the eternal danger of planetary tyranny. The Emperor is  - like a number of works of art created in Theresienstadt - proof of the human mind's ability to remain free even under the conditions of perfect slavery. Thus, all the mind's capacities are concentrated into one focal point and lasting values are created even while the artist is facing annihilation".

..."love poems to god..."

From 'The Book of Hours' - Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

Sunday 11 May 2008 at 7.30pm

Musicians and Actors to be announced

A lecture recital remembering the 63rd anniversary of the liberation of the Theresienstadt ghetto which took place in May 1945.

The concert will include a performance of Viktor Ullmann's penultimate composition 'Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christophe Rilke' for Narrator and Piano with ' Nachschub', a work of Paul Aron Sandfort, Holocaust survivor and child in Theresienstadt, for string quartet, flute, trumpet and narrator. Paul Aron Sandfort will be present as an honoured guest at this commemorative event.

There will also be a reading of Paul Aron Sandfort's play 'The Visit' which describes the International Red Cross inspection of Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1944.

The recital will conclude with a rare performance of Erwin Schulhoff's Oratorium 'Das Kommunistische Manifest' based on the writings of Karl Marx.

"Works of art are indeed always products of having been in danger, of having gone to the very end in an experience, to where man can go no further".

From 'Letters' - Rainer Maria Rilke

Contact details:
Venue: St Paul's Church, Rectory Grove, Clapham, London SW4 ODX UK

Tel: +44(0) 20 662 2128
E-mail: StPaul[at]claphamsw4.fsnet.co.uk

Promoter:
Viktor Ullmann Foundation
Website: www.viktorullmannfoundation.org.uk
E-mail: office[at]viktorullmann.freeserve.co.uk
Tel: +44(0)20 8785 4772

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