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DEFIANT REQUIEM: VERDI AT
TEREZÍN PERFORMED
AT LINCOLN CENTER
A Concert to Benefit UJA-Federation of New York’s Community
Initiative for Holocaust Survivors
WHAT: UJA-Federation of New York, along with The Defiant
Requiem Foundation and Selfhelp Community Services, Inc.,
presents Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín on Monday, April
29, 2013, at 7:30 p.m., at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln
Center in New York City. A two-hour concert-drama, Defiant
Requiem memorializes the courage of Jewish Holocaust
prisoners in Theresienstadt (Terezín), who defied their Nazi
captors by producing a profusion of arts and scholarship
despite conditions of deprivation and hopelessness. All
proceeds benefit UJA-Federation’s Community Initiative for
Holocaust Survivors (CIHS), which provides support to
Holocaust survivors, enabling them to live with
independence, comfort, and dignity.
Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín is a production of the
full Requiem Mass by Giuseppe Verdi that was performed 16
times by a chorus of 150 Jewish prisoners in Theresienstadt
Detention Camp in 1943 and 1944. The last, most infamous
performance occurred on June 23, 1944, before the
International Red Cross and high-ranking Nazi officials from
Berlin. After this performance, many members of the chorus
were deported to Auschwitz. The prisoner-singers sang every
performance in a spirit of defiance, singing to their
captors the Latin text of the Requiem, words they dared not
speak. Defiant Requiem presents this story through the
voices of the soloists and actors, a full chorus and
orchestra, and segments of Nazi propaganda film and
videotaped witness testimony, between movements of the
music. The presentation was created by Maestro Murry Sidlin.
William A. Ackman, Patti Askwith Kenner, and Carol Levin
serve as event chairs. Former Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner
Elie Wiesel and Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat, chairman of
the board of The Defiant Requiem Foundation, serve as
honorary chairs.
A reception, open to event sponsors, honoring Holocaust
survivor Ernest W. Michel, executive vice president emeritus
of UJA-Federation of New York, will take place prior to the
concert.
WHEN: Monday, April 29, 2013
7:30 p.m.
WHERE: Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, New York City
Corner of Columbus Avenue and 65th Street
TICKETS: Tickets ranging from $50-$150 may be purchased
beginning Monday, February 4, 2013, by calling Center Charge
at 1.212.721.6500 or visiting
www.Lincolncenter.org
. For sponsorship information, visit
www.ujafedny.org/defiant-requiem .
About UJA-Federation of New York
For more than 90 years, UJA-Federation has been a central
force for communal planning and philanthropy in the New York
Jewish community. Through UJA-Federation, almost 60,000
donors pool their resources to help people in need, inspire
a passion for Jewish life and learning, and strengthen
Jewish communities around the world -- to address the issues
that matter to us most as Jews and as New Yorkers. Working
with nearly 100 network beneficiary agencies, synagogues,
and other Jewish organizations, our reach spans from New
York to Israel to more than 60 other countries around the
world, touching 4.5 million people each year. Because we do
the most good when we do it together. For more information
on how to donate or how to volunteer, please visit our
website at
http://www.ujafedny.org .
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