The Heimat Quartet Performs Rare Music by WW2 Victims 10/28

The Glen Ridge Community Concerts series kicks off Sunday, Oct 28 with The Heimat Quartet, a Fellowship Quartet-in-Residence at Montclair State University’s Cali School of Music. The group will play a deeply moving trio of works, all by Czechs. The Quartet consulted MSU adjunct professor of Holocaust Music, Dr. Tamara Reps Freeman, one of the only Holocaust ethnomusicologists in the world, who advised them on the repertoire, interpretation and history of these unique pieces, made even more powerful by their origins.

Two of the composers, Gideon Klein and Erwin Schulhoff, had careers cut short by their internment in separate concentration camps during WW2, but still managed to compose during their wartime hardships. Dr. Freeman and the Heimat Quartet want to bring greater awareness to their beautiful pieces. The third composer, is the famed Czech composer Antonin Dvorak who encouraged Schulhoff to study music.

The Heimat Quartet consists of Patrick Shaughnessy, violin; Aubrey Holmes, violin; Ivan Mendoza, viola; Brendon Phelps, cello. Visit their website: https://www.heimatquartet.com/

The program for Oct 28 includes:

Fantasy and Fugue by Gideon Klein – Klein wrote this work during his three years in Terezin and completed his last piece a week before he was transported to Auschwitz, where he perished.

Five Pieces for String Quartet by Erwin Schulhoff – Antonin Dvorak encouraged his musical study when Schulhoff was just 10 years old, and Schulhoff wrote this piece when he was in his twenties, receiving critical praise. He was deported in 1941 to a Bulgarian concentration camp where he died of tuberculosis in 1942.

String Quartet No. 14 in A♭ major, Op. 105, B. 193, by Antonin Dvorak – This was the last string quartet the composer completed, and he wrote it after a visit to America. It premiered 122 years ago on Oct. 20, 1896.

The Glen Ridge Community Concert Series is held at:

Glen Ridge Congregational Church UCC

195 Ridgewood Ave

Glen Ridge, NJ 07028

Tickets are available at the door: Adults $20; Seniors $15; Students $10;

www.glenridgeconcerts.org