[BROADCAST] Music of Remembrance: VEDEM
Free (Free)
Ross Hauck, voice
Karen Early Evans, voice
Lori Laitman – Vedem
Between 1942 and 1944, about 15,000 children were imprisoned in the Terezín concentration camp, and nearly all of them were eventually sent from there to death camps. But a group of about 100 teenage boys left us a rare, priceless gift: their lives in their own words, recorded in the pages of a secret magazine that they called VEDEM (Czech for “in the lead”) and created every week for almost two years under the noses of their Nazi captors.
For this week’s feature, we’re privileged to share a performance of Vedem, the stirring oratorio that composer Lori Laitman and librettist David Mason created for Music of Remembrance based on the stories and words of those courageous teenagers. Defying their captivity, these boys bared their souls with the poetry, essays, and illustrations. The writings reveal inspirational courage, passionate idealism, and wisdom far beyond the years of their young authors. They also display amazing literary talent.
For the oratorio, Laitman set six of their boys’ original verses. Mason’s poetic choral lyrics speak of the boys’ lives in Terezín, their hopes and fears, and their will to create beauty even in the face of unimaginable suffering. “The soul cannot believe that we will die / so we make beauty to delay our death,” goes one couplet. If you watched our featured video last week – our documentary The Boys of Terezín – you probably recognize the theme from Antonín Dvořák's Humoresque in the setting for the aria “Love in the Floodgates.” Laitman’s use of the melody was inspired by survivor Emil Kopel’s account of how he endured a death march to Buchenwald by replaying this tune over and over in his head.
Music of Remembrance premiered the oratorio in 2010 in a performance that brought four of the six surviving “boys” – then men in the 80s – together for a reunion in Seattle after 65 years. The video you’ll experience now is from our 2016 performance. It features the amazing Northwest Boychoir led by Joseph Crnko, joined by vocal soloists Ross Hauck and Karen Early Evans along with the Music of Remembrance ensemble drawn from the Seattle Symphony.
Watch the livestream here: https://www.musicofremembrance.org/watch-and-listen/vedem
Link to donate: https://www.musicofremembrance.org/support
Note: Livestream concerts are subject to change without notice. If a livestream doesn't take place, we hope you'll visit the performers' website to explore their recorded performances, or discover another group to listen to online!