Long Beach Symphony musicians will feature a \u201cViolins of Hope\u201d concert, with instruments once played by Jews during the Holocaust, as part of its 2019-2020 Concert Series, announced Thursday.<\/p>\n
The string instruments that will be used for the April 25, 2020 classical concert were restored by Amnon Weinstein<\/a> and his son Avshalom. Amnon Weinstein is the 80-year-old Israel-born founder of Violins of Hope<\/a>, who started collecting the instruments and the stories behind them. The Long Beach musicians will play a repertoire meant to illustrate hope flourishing amid devastating circumstances.<\/p>\n The selections will include John Williams\u2019 \u201cHatikvah,\u201d the Israel national anthem; Williams\u2019 \u201cTheme from Schindler\u2019s List\u201d and Ben-Haim\u2019s Symphony No. 1, 2nd Movement, \u201cPsalm.\u201d\u00a0 The final will be Verdi\u2019s \u201cRequiem,\u201d which was performed in 1944 by the Jewish orchestra and chorus to protest the Nazi\u2019s SS visit at the Terezin camp.<\/p>\n The performance is the last Southern California stop for the Violins of Hope series. Others include an exhibition of the instruments at the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust as well as the Los Angeles Lawyers Philharmonic and the Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts at Cal State Northridge.<\/p>\n Long Beach Symphony Director Eckart Preu, who also serves as music director of the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, was a participant in that orchestra\u2019s Violins of Hope experience and found it \u201cdeeply moving,\u201d said Long Beach Symphony President Kelly Lucera. Lucera reached out to the collection owner who agreed to extend the West Coast tour by one week, allowing Long Beach to host the finale on April 25.<\/p>\n The Long Beach Symphony concert series opens Sept. 28 with music by Gy\u00f6rgy Ligeti, a Hungarian composer, who may be familiar to fans of Stanley Kubrick\u2014he wrote the music for “2001: A Space Odyssey”\u2014followed by Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s Violin Concerto in A minor and Tchaikovsky\u2019s Symphony No. 5.<\/p>\n On Nov. 16, the symphony leads off with an orchestral rendition of DeBussy\u2019s \u201cClair de Lune,\u201d followed by Franz Schmidt\u2019s \u201cIntermezzo\u201d from his romantic opera \u201cNotre Dame.\u201d The program includes Cesar Franck\u2019s \u201cLe Chasseur Maudit (The Accursed Huntsman),\u201d in which he depicts a huntsman condemned to be pursued by demons for his failure to observe the Sabbath. The evening ends with \u201cSaint-Sa\u00ebns\u2019 Symphony No. 3,\u201d dubbed the Organ Symphony.<\/p>\n February 8, 2020, the Symphony celebrates folk melodies from the United States and Mexico interpreted by 20th century composers.\u00a0 The program opens and closes with works by Aaron Copland: El Sal\u00f3n M\u00e9xico and Appalachian Spring orchestral suite, which is best known for its \u201cSimple Gifts\u201d melody, according the a statement from the symphony. The symphony will also perform works by Mexican composer Arturo Marquez and his Concerto for Harp, \u201cMascaras\u201d and from Carlos Chavez, whose Symphony No. 2, \u201cSinfon\u00eda India\u201d includes three melodies originating from Native American tribes of northern Mexico.<\/p>\n The symphony will celebrate Beethoven\u2019s 250th birthday March 7, when guest violinist Stefan Jackiw will perform Beethoven\u2019s Violin Concerto in D major; the only concerto he ever wrote for the instrument.<\/p>\n Romantic composers on May 30 explore the meaning of love, life and death in Les Preludes, Liszt. Guest pianist Claire Huangci will present Clara Schumann\u2019s Piano Concerto in A minor.<\/p>\n The POPS! season kicks off Oct. 26, with a performance by violinist and singer Lucia Micarelli, who is known for collaborations with Josh Groban, Chris Botti, and Jethro Tull. On Dec. 21, musicians celebrate the holiday season with The Copa Boys, followed on Feb. 22 with Mardi Gras music mixed with New Orleans jazz. A tribute to Broadway composers Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber follows on March 21 with tunes from \u201cGypsy,\u201d \u201cWest Side Story,\u201d \u201dSweeney Todd,\u201d \u201cEvita,\u201d \u201cCats,\u201d and \u201cPhantom of the Opera.\u201d<\/p>\n The POPS! season ends on May 9 with A Night of Symphonic Rock.<\/p>\n