Musicians
Meet the people rediscovering this lost generation of music and performing it for new audiences worldwide. They’re using this music to educate, to remember, and to correct a historical injustice.
Conductors
James Conlon | Music director of the Los Angeles Opera
Called “One of America’s foremost conductors” by the Washington Post, Maestro James Conlon is devoted to, in his words, “bringing composers silenced by the Nazi regime to more widespread attention.” Conlon founded Recovered Voices (now the Ziering-Conlon Initiative for Recovered Voices at the Colburn School), a performance series playing the works of composers whose lives were impacted by the Holocaust. He also co-founded the OREL Foundation, an online repository of information on composers and music suppressed by the Third Reich. | Biography
Murry Sidlin | Founder of the Defiant Requiem
Maestro Murry Sidlin is Founder, President and Artistic Director of Washington, DC’s Defiant Requiem Foundation. Sidlin, a pioneer in the staging of classical music multimedia dramas, created the live concert presentations Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín, and Hours of Freedom: The Story of the Terezin Composer. His efforts highlight the works of Jewish composers, singers, and musicians imprisoned by the Nazis at Terezín, a Czech ghetto-labor camp. | Biography
Musicians
Phillip Silver | Renowned pianist and Professor of Musicology at the University of Maine
Called “An international collaborative pianist of the first rank” by The Boston Globe, University of Maine Professor Phillip Silver has spent 20 years researching, rediscovering, and playing the manuscripts of Jewish composers killed during the Holocaust. Silver and his wife, noted cellist Noreen Silver, have recorded the work of composers including Leone Sinigaglia, an Italian-Jew who died when he was arrested by the Nazis in Turin. | Biography
Aron Zelkowicz | Acclaimed cellist and founder of the Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival
Founder of the Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival, noted cellist and teacher Aron Zelkowicz collaborated with musicologist James A. Grymes on the concert Violins of Hope. The concert featured Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra members performing Jewish songs on restored violins that originally belonged to Jewish musicians during the Holocaust. Those instruments had been donated by survivors, family, and friends to the Tel Aviv-based Violins of Hope project. | Biography
Renan Koen | Musician and Music Therapist
Turkish pianist, singer, educator, and music therapist Renan Koen has delved deeply into the history and works of Jewish composers imprisoned in the Terezín ghetto-labor camp. Her album “Holocaust Remembrance,” featured the work of several of these composers, including Pavel Haas, Gideon Klein, and Viktor Ullmann. She was the guest pianist at a United Nations Holocaust remembrance concert, and worked with Turkish Maestro Gürer Aykal to bring Auschwitz survivor Michel Assael’s Auschwitz Symphonic Poem, to its world-premiere at Carnegie Hall. | Biography
Musicologists
Karen Uslin | Director of Research for The Defiant Requiem Foundation
Musicologist and vocalist Karen L. Uslin, Ph.D., is a specialist in Jewish composers and musicians imprisoned in the Terezín ghetto-labor camp, and has lectured internationally on the subject. She received her Ph.D. in Musicology/Central & Eastern European Studies from Catholic University, and has been adjunct faculty at Rowan University and Stockton University. As a vocalist, she’s performed at venues such as the Vatican and the Kennedy Center. | Biography
Bret Werb | Staff Musicologist and Recorded Sound Curator at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Staff musicologist and recorded sound curator at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum since 1992, Bret Werb’s credits include three albums of Yiddish songs from the Holocaust, which he researched and produced. His academic work includes a seminal paper in the journal Musica Judaica, which researched the origins and importance of 14 songbooks of Yiddish songs written and performed during the Holocaust. The paper became the inspiration for the sold-out Carnegie Hall concert, We are Here. | Biography
Luthiers
Amnon and Avshalom Weinstein | Father and son, creators of Violins of Hope.
Father and son luthiers Amnon and Avshalom Weinstein created Violins of Hope, a traveling exhibit and concert series. The series features violins, violas, and cellos played by Jewish musicians during the Holocaust. The instruments have been donated or given on loan by survivors, families, and friends to the Weinsteins, who repair them for no charge (a process that can take up to 24 months). | Biography