When Noreen Green founded the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony (LAJS) in 1994, she had to wrestle with a couple of questions.
The famed Vienna Philharmonic has acknowledged that many of its musicians were Nazi party members during Hitler\’s rule and that its director may have delivered a prestigious orchestra award to a Nazi war criminal two decades after the end of World War Two.
Dan Savell and his wife, Abby, knew exactly what they needed to take their percussion rental business to the next level.
Music historians will remember Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994) as one of the greatest symphonists of the 20th century. The Los Angeles Philharmonic remembers him as a partner, an artistic collaborator and a regular part of the orchestra’s programming.
The Skirball screens four documentaries that address the richness, complexity and inherent contradictions of the Jewish experience in the modern age.
The Palestine National Orchestra performed for the first time in the Palestinian Authority and in Israel. The orchestra made its debut in Ramallah, and then performed in eastern Jerusalem over the weekend and in Haifa on Sunday night. \”Today an orchestra, tomorrow a state,\” Suhail Khoury, director of the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music, wrote in the program, according to the French news agency AFP.
If you ask 35-year-old violinist Daniel Hope about his Jewish heritage, make sure you have time. It’s a complicated question.
“On my mother’s side was an incredibly Orthodox Jewish family that goes back to the first rabbi of Potsdam,” he said during a recent late-night cell phone call while in transit to Hamburg, Germany, for a concert the next day.
\”I have the great good fortune to have an ear to the ground and a great many wonderful colleagues,\” Kahane said of his network of music-world sources, mostly fellow musicians with whom the conductor has formed strong bonds.
The Days of Awe evoke many feelings, but my first thoughts invariably turn to the special music of these days. From the solemn, almost brooding melody of Kol Nidre to the lilting \”High Holiday\” tune that unifies the music of both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, there is much in which to delight.
Perhaps because this is the only synagogue music that many Jews hear all year, there are fewer alternative versions of the High Holiday liturgy than of, say, \”Lecha Dodi\” or \”Adon Olam.\” Still, these albums should help put you in a proper frame of mind.
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