Jerusalem orchestra to play Paris

Several weeks after the deadly Paris attacks, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra will head to the French capital to perform at the historic headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization for the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

The UNESCO concert will be held on January 27, International Holocaust Day. It’s the first time the Jerusalem orchestra was invited to play at UNESCO.

“It’s a great honor,” said Yair Stern, general manager of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. “It’s such an important event.”

Conducted by the orchestra’s music director, Frédéric Chaslin, a second generation Holocaust survivor originally from France, the orchestra will perform Shostakovich’s Babi Yar symphony, about the World War II massacre, set to the words of Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko.

The orchestra will also perform “Suite Yiddish” by composer and Holocaust survivor Norbert Glanzberg, which also tells the stories of the European pogroms.

The music being performed doesn’t relate to contemporary events, but certainly makes one think about the attacks in Paris, said Stern.

“When you play those kinds of pieces, you think about those killed, about the terror,” he said. “You think about what happened seventy-something years ago, the hatred and the anti-Semitism, the killing and the blood, and what a huge tragedy it was, and how it’s happening again. You tie it all together, you can’t help it.”

http://youtu.be/ZbCT7NHb3FE

The entire trip won’t focus only on the Holocaust, said Stern. One day prior, the orchestra will perform Brahms and Ravel in another concert in Paris.