The Shalhevet High School Choir was one of eight groups performing Sunday, Oct. 25, at the eighth annual Daniel Pearl World Music Days festival concert at the Ikeda Auditorium in Santa Monica. Also on the program were the American Victory Orchestra, the Buddhist-affiliated ensemble group that organizes the concert, conducted by Patrick Scott; a Cambodian girls dance troupe in traditional costume; the world champion acrobatic dancing duo Realis; sopranos Alise Richel and Connie Smith; and jazz saxophonist Bernie Maupin of Herbie Hancock fame, who closed the concert accompanied by the orchestra.
About 700 people attended the concert, which was one of more than 3,100 to be held this month dedicated to the memory of slain journalist Daniel Pearl. Pearl, who grew up in Encino, was South Asia bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal when he was kidnapped and murdered by al-Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan just after the 9/11 attacks.
Pearl’s parents, Ruth and UCLA professor Judea Pearl, addressed the audience and said they always attend this particular concert because of its international flavor and because it pre-dates the formation of their foundation, which seeks to advance their son’s ideals of peace and global understanding.
Shalhevet’s 20-voice a capella choir, the only Jewish group on the program, sang Ernst Toch’s “Geographical Fugue” along with “Hiney Ba Hashalom,” by Mosh Ben Ari, in an arrangement by Pizmon, the Jewish a capella group of Columbia University.
Asked why the couple had founded the festival, which sponsors concerts in places as far away as Slovenia, Saudi Arabia, China and Sudan in addition to all over the United States, Judea Pearl said that at Danny’s death, he and his wife had the feeling that it was a unique moment in world history, when people everywhere were feeling very emotional and very united.
“Those moments don’t come along very often — fortunately,” he said. “And we thought, ‘We have to use it, for good.’”
The Shalhevet choir is directed by Joelle Keene. It will perform again at the annual dinner of the Los Angeles Holocaust Memorial and Monument at the Beverly Hills Hotel Nov. 8.
