Members of the San Diego Symphony and conductor Matthew Garbutt presented “Critters,” a composition by John Lorge for woodwind quintet and narrator. In a very creative and novel approach to the musical story, all of the performing instruments, prior to the concert, were arranged in an “instrument petting zoo."  This allowed the children an opportunity to hold and feel those funny looking objects by which grown-ups make music. 

Amid this zoo was a Noah’s Ark.. Connecting the biblical story of Noah to the rainbow of sounds they heard during a concert was not only ingenious; it provided an obvious Jewish context

However, what about “Tubby the Tuba?” Is there some relationship between that ever-expanding domain of “Jewish Music” and a children’s fairy tale? My thoughts went back in time to those great performances of Tubby the Tuba by Danny Kaye, otherwise known to his friends as “David Daniel Kaminsky”— now there is a good Jewish name.  Danny did bring Tubby to life.

As the story went, Tubby needed to find his purpose in life.  What should his melody be? The great orchestra provided him with security, but not much creativity.  All he did was “oompahs.” Therefore, he went forth to find his own unique melody.  He joined a circus but no special melody came to him.  Next, he traveled to the Singing City, where he found a beautiful orphan melody, and fell in love.  There, he learned the importance of remaining true to himself and discovered the secret song he had been searching for.

After I reflected some on this lesson, I realized an interesting connection.  Jewish music has also “wandered” for years in search of a voice.  It found not just one, but many.  It has alighted in many different domains of the creative arts. We will sample some of these domains in the main portion of the San Diego Jewish Music Festival, which will be offered during May.

It will begin on May 14 when violinist Zina Schiff will perform the music of Terezin.  Her concert will be based upon musical recitals given by Jewish inmates at the Terezin concentration camp in Czechoslovakia— a “show camp” which the Nazis operated in the hope of deceiving the world about their true intention toward the Jews.  At any time after giving their concerts, the inmates of Terezin might find themselves on a transport to Auschwitz, or other Nazi death camps.  All the cast members  of a propaganda film made by the Nazis to show the humane life in the camp no sooner had completed the film than they were deported to their murders.

Nevertheless, at Terezin, the Jewish spirit, with all of its artistic beauty, creativity and intellectual significance was restructured and brought back to life. Music, at first forbidden to the inmates, became in time tolerated and then a Nazi-exploited feature of the ghetto life inside a fortress of Prague.

It is truly a miracle, as well as a testament, to the creative human spirit, that under these circumstances, Jews created and presented works of great beauty:  Mozart’s full Requiem was performed eighteen times. It has been said that the music of Terezin played an important part in their spirit of survival.  The Terezin historian Joza Karas said it most eloquently:  "Where there was no food for the body, there was food for the soul."

Schiff, who studied first under the master violinist Jascha Heifetz and later at the Curtis Institute, has devoted much of her career to Jewish music, including the recording of three CDs exploring the subject.  Her connection to the Music Festival also is more personal: her sister Eileen Wingard, a retired violinist of the San Diego Symphony, was one of the organizers.  Wingard worked closely—dare I say, “in concert”-- with Roselyn Pappelbaum, the chair, and Jackie Gmach, director of the Jewish Music Festival.

Two additional festival events will provide very different insights into this time in Jewish history.  The “Varian Fry Assignment: Rescue”  exhibit from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum will be on display starting May 15 and running until June 4, 2006 at the Lawrence Family  Jewish Community Center in La Jolla.  This is the story of one of the most courageous men of our times.  He was known as the “American Schindler." Yet he died in obscurity, without recognition or acknowledgment, by our country until 24 years after his death and 50 years after his courageous actions took place. 

Fry was a quiet man, a Harvard-educated classicist from New York.  He knew little or nothing of the complicated workings of the underground in the Vichy French Zone: the forgers, black marketers, the secret passages and modes of escape.  Yet he was able to save the lives of thousands endangered refugees who otherwise would have been murdered by the Nazis.  I feel we all owe this man a debt for the lives of so many of our leading artist and writers:  Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Hannah Arendt and Alma Mahler, wife of the composer Gustav Mahler and first director of the New York Philharmonic.

Following on May 16, four residents of San Diego, Margot Cohn, Lilli Greenberg. Ruth Sax and Eve Gerstle, who sung in the choir at Terezin will share their memories of survival and their life afterward.  

Fathom, The Body Universe, will be presented on May 18, at the Steven and Mary Birch North Park Theatre.  Fathom will bring together the outstanding talents of three highly regarded artist from three different artistic disciplines and from three different countries. 

One of them is John Malashock of San Diego, an artistic director and choreographer. He brings to  his art over 30 years of artistic accomplishments in both theatre and dance.  Malashock  has created over 60 choreographic works. 

In 1988, after a very successful career with Twyla Tharp, he founded his own company: Malashock Dance. He has worked with many locale theatre and musical groups including The La Jolla Playhouse, The Old Globe, The San Diego Symphony and The La Jolla Music Society. In addition, he has worked with major opera companies of San Diego, San Francisco and New York City. 

Malashock has received many awards and honors, including six Emmy Awards. Malashock originally had seen some  reproductions  of Junko’s work and invited her to create the backdrops for this production..

A second featured artist is Ariel Blumenthal, an Israeli composer  born in Tel Aviv in 1974. After his military service he was admitted to the Rimon School of Contemporary Music; Israel’s largest independent professional music school for advanced study of contemporary music.  He continued to pursue a musical education at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, joining the ranks of such distinguished alumni as Quincy Jones and Diana Krall.  

Blumenthal’s music is now performed throughout Europe, Israel and America.  His orchestral piece “Rabin” won the Chicago Symphony Orchestra composition competition in 2001 and was performed recently here in San Diego by the Tifereth Israel Symphony Orchestra under the baton of David Amos.

The third performer, visual Artist Junko Chodos, is a well-respected spiritual artist who creates religious art that transcends denominations.  Her works, which number over 1,000 in a variety of media, have been exhibited in museums and galleries in the United States, Japan and Europe and are held in many public and private collections.  Her art is an excellent example of the integration of western and eastern artistic sensibilities. 

She lectures frequently to museum and academic audiences and has published articles dealing with her central theme:  that the process of creating art helps both the artist and the viewer transcend ethnicity and reach for universal truths.  In 2001 that Chodos created a series of works titled, “Esoteric Buddhism” from which John Malashock drew inspiration for Fathom. Her stage settings are quite large measuring 12’ high by 31.5’wide.  They are collages, laid by hand piece by piece, on a Mylar background and then hand painted with charcoal and acrylic.

Before leaving our discussion of Fathom, I would like to mention that Junko’s husband, Rafael Chodos, who is an expert on Jewish history and religious philosophy, has worked with her on many artistic creations.  Rafael Chodos is a business litigation attorney in Los Angeles.  In his youth, he had wanted to be a rabbi like his father.

Dmitri Shostakovich’s life  in music spanned most of the 20^th century.  While not Jewish himself, he felt a close kinship and solidarity with the Jews of Russia.  His opus 79, “From Jewish Folk Poetry," will begin the program on May 24. This beautiful song cycle for soprano (the highest vocal range for females), mezzo-soprano (which means half-soprano in Italian and  generally has a darker, richer tone.),  tenor (the second lowest vocal range above the bass for male singers-there are three gradations in between) and piano  uses text from the archives of Jewish folk music.  

Originally the text was in Yiddish, that being the “Jewish” language in Russia at the turn of the 20th century. It was later translated into Russian and subsequently back into Yiddish.

Today many, if not most, music aficionados, (this writer among them), consider Shostakovich the most important Russian composer of the 20th century.  He was one of the most prolific of composers of his time creating numerous symphonies, operas, chorals and chamber music.  He also was one of the earliest composers for the movies for which he composed 35 film scores. His first score was composed while he was still in his twenties and a student at the Leningrad conservatory.  

His life was not an easy one. Shostakovich was able to acquire a fine musical education and build a successful career in music, while living under the most difficult of circumstances in his native Russia.  

”When the Rabbi of the Moon fell from the stars on to the town of Montik, the stardust left a trail of music, wonderment and great knowledge….” What a beautiful introduction to the wonderful world of the Hasidic Masters, their incomparable music and their timeless and universal wisdom.  

In an instant, this inspiring statement, which I read on Danny Maseng’s website,   captured my full attention and compelled me to experience this place of wonder with Danny Maseng, who will perform May 27.  He is a master storyteller and singer, whose ever expanding range of talents also include playwright, actor, composer and most recently, novelist,  His numerous accomplishments in the  creative arts, truly read like a one-man who’s-who for the performing arts.. 

It all started in 1971 when Maseng first came to our shores to star in the Broadway musical ‘Only Fools are Sad’.  For this first venture onto the American stage, Maseng’s angel (a Broadway term for those who provide the funds) was Golda Meir. Over the next three decades, his considerable gifts and talents allowed him to succeed in many different undertakings.  He served as Evaluator of New American Plays/Opera-Musical Theatre for the National Endowment for the Arts. He has appeared as guest soloist with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and is hailed as one of “Israel’s Greatest Singers." 

 He is currently Director of the Spielberg Fellowships for The Foundation for Jewish Camping, as well as the artistic director of The Brandeis-Bardin Institute: a center for Jewish culture and learning  in the Simi Valley of California. Maseng has become one of the most respected composers on contemporary Liturgical and Synagogue music and has recorded over ten albums of his works.

In order to keep busy and avoid boredom during those rare times of inactivity, he squeezes in frequent guest-starring roles on ‘Law and Order’ and its many spin-offs, is the voice behind many shows and commercials such as ‘Wild Discovery,’ ‘The Life of Mohammad Ali,’ ‘Hewlett Packard’  and ‘American Express.’ He even makes time to do guest appearances on such shows as ‘Deadline,’ Prince Street’ and ‘One Life to Live.’ I think that in Danny Maseng’s case the title should read ‘One life of many to Live’. Maseng’s long awaited Broadway musical “Let There Be Light” is currently in production, rounding off a musical career spanning classical, folk, rock and pop.  I will now round off my thoughts regarding this remarkable man with a quote from a commentary of his work “Soul on Fire” “

"The stories my grandfather told me lit up my life," says Maseng, and they will light up your life as well. Tales of Harry's wisdom, the Shabbat bride, angels and mythical birds, are embedded in Maseng's soul as we are whisked away on a roller coaster journey through life, from Jerusalem to Eilat, from a Hassidic Rebbe's shteibl to a Zen Monastery. Maseng weaves his intimate story around the songs of Shabbat. His exquisite voice and virtuoso guitar playing vividly illuminate familiar and original songs in Hebrew, Yiddish, English and Ladino. 

The Cuarteto Latino Americano is now one of the world’s leading string quartets.  It was formed in 1981, with the sole purpose of performing string quartet music written in the Americas .  Their rapid rise to international prominence in the world of classical music has lead to their present positions as quartet-in-residence at both Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA (appointed in 1987), as well as the Centro Nacional de las Artes in Mexico City.  Along the way, they won top prize from the Mexican National Critics Association and have toured through North and South America, Central Europe and Scandinavia .   

To communicate the subtleties and nuances of this unique art form they have conducted seminars and held residences at several conservatories in the U.S. and in Latin America .  I mention this point for a reason.  Many years ago, when I too studied music in the conservatory, I was told by my teachers that the string quartet is the most unique and difficult of all art forms. If you are a soloist with either an orchestra or an instrumentalist backing you up, it is their responsibility to follow you.  

In an orchestra, there are many to cover the few, meaning if you follow the conductor and make an error, who will hear it except the player next to you.  However, legend has it that the exception was the legendary Toscanini, who, it is rumored, tossed his podium at some poor soul in the second string section.  To put this rumor to rest, I consulted with my brother Raphael, who, being a fine violinist has played in string quartets.  His hearing of the event was that the Maestro had smashed the fiddle over the player’s head.  Nevertheless, he must have had an incredible ear.  

For the present, however, imagine you are one of four players and you are out there on your own with no conductor providing direction. Each of you may be playing in a different clef (as in treble or base or somewhere in between) and a different musical line (think melody).  Here one must truly be a master of his instrument, as well as possess a deep understanding of the music and what the composer is hoping to communicate.   In looking over various commentaries and reviews in preparation for this article, I was particularly taken by what The Pittsburgh Press had to say. "The members of this ensemble play with a rapport that verges on telepathic.”  I felt that the writer of that review knew his subject, as few of us do. 

The program on Tuesday May 30, will include four compositions.  Three of these works have a logical place in a Jewish Music Festival.  However, one may ask, so what is so Jewish about Mozart? one of the most revered composers of all time.   Is this inclusion merely in celebration of his 250^th birthday?  

While that may have some bearing on the matter, I think a more interesting explanation would point out that Mozart was connected to our people in a most unusual way.  Lorenzo Da Ponte, a Catholic priest of Jewish extraction, met Mozart in 1782 and they became close friends.  Their co-productions of The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi fan tutte are considered by musicologist as some of the most magical moments in the history of music.  

There is presently an exhibition at the Jewish Museum in Vienna , which focuses on the relationship between Da Ponte and Mozart in the Vienna of Joseph II.  The exhibit is providing some interesting insights into the significance of both artists for Viennese and Austrian Jewry.  It is also exploring the Nazi treatment and “Arianisation” of their work, including its impact on our interpretation of Mozart today.   I am not sure of how this may affect the interpretation of Mozart’s Divertimento in F Major, K 136  by the Cuarteto Latino Americano, but it may provide for some interesting conversation afterwards.

The other three composers are all Jewish—George Gershwin,  Felix Mendelson, and Osvaldo Golijov. The latter,  an Argentine, composed Yiddishbbuk in 1992 on a commission from the Tanglewood Festival. It  is a rather dark and somber work in three movements. Golijov based his work on psalms taken from the notebook of Franz Kafka.

The festival will conclude June 22 with a klezmer performance in Balboa Park.  I will return to this in a column closer to the event.  In the meantime, those interested in attending any of the performances of the San Diego Jewish Music Festival may obtain ticket information on the website of the San Diego Center for Jewish Culture.

  The San Die