Instruments of remembrance

Instruments of remembrance

A certain circle of synchronicity will close on Thursday 29 September when the New Zealand School of Music Orchestra presents a concert on the 70th anniversary of the Babi Yar massacre in Kiev.

The concert, entitled ‘In Remembrance’, features Requiem ‘The Holocaust’, a work written by Boris Pigovat in commemoration of this horrific event in which 34,000 Jews were murdered by Nazi forces. And two of the violins being played in the concert were donated to the School by Holocaust survivor Clare Galambos Winter.

“There is a real poignancy in this connection,” says NZSM Events Coordinator Stephen Gibbs.  “Clare is a generous supporter of the performance programmes at NZSM and has endowed the School with both scholarships and instruments through the Victoria University Foundation. The 2011 recipients are postgraduate Jonathan Tanner and third-year student Arna Shaw, both of whom are playing in the concert. In fact, Arna will be leading the orchestra in their performance of the Pigovat Requiem.”

The remarkable story of Clare Galambos Winter’s survival has recently been published by Victoria University Press in The Violinist by Sarah Gaitanos. It details her arrest, confinement in Auschwitz and transfer to a slave labour camp, the loss of her family and her journey to New Zealand where she played violin with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra for 33 years.

“In New Zealand we may feel isolated from the world and these sorts of events,” says Professor Elizabeth Hudson, Director of NZSM, “but a concert such as this emphasises just how interconnected we all are. It is certainly fitting that these instruments will be played in this concert of commemoration.

“The subtitle of the concert is ‘facing conflict through music’ and the four works being performed were created in response to four very different situations. Music encourages us to remember and honour victims and to share and reflect on our own relationship to these tragedies in a very special way.” 

The NZSM Orchestra will be conducted by Kenneth Young and violist Professor Donald Maurice and Inbal Megiddo, NZSM’s newly appointed lecturer in cello, will feature as soloists. As well as the Pigovat Requiem, the programme includes Schelomo for orchestra and cello by Ernest Bloch, and two New Zealand works: Anthony Ritchie’s Remember Parihaka and NZSM lecturer Professor John Psathas’s Luminous.

The concert will take place from 7:30pm in the Wellington Town Hall on Thursday 29 September. Tickets are available through Ticketek.  

Photo: Violinists Arna Shaw and Jonathan Tanner with Clare Galambos Winter at a recent concert tribute to the benefactor and Holocaust survivor.