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Event
Moscow Nights Presents: Longing for Peace and Home
New Orleans, perhaps more than most American cities, has a vital and living recollection of the Second World War because of our magnificent National World War II Museum. The museum quite rightly focuses upon the American experience in the war, both in Europe and the Pacific. But the war itself took place across most of the world, and nowhere was the fighting more murderous or extensive than on the Eastern Front, where the Nazi armies invaded in June, 1941 and were ultimately defeated by the Red Army (assisted in no small measure here by the United States and its Lend-Lease program).
In our program, we want to focus upon performances of two types of songs that arose on the Eastern Front.
The first are Russian songs that were popular throughout the Soviet Union during the war, songs familiar even today to every Russian but not well known abroad. Many of these songs are hauntingly beautiful and transcend even language in their impact. Our chief interpreter of these songs will be our own Artistic Director Natasha Ramer. Born in the Soviet Union in the closing year of the war, Natasha vividly recalls that many of the songs that we plan to present were literally part of the aural landscape in Russia during the twenty years and more after the war ended.
This is the reason why Natasha Ramer was particularly anxious to bring such a program to New Orleans, where presenting these songs would somehow join the best of these wartime Russian songs to those memorialized at the WWII Museum.
The second group of songs we look forward to presenting are Jewish songs that were written and performed in the wartime Jewish ghettos from Warsaw to Vilnius, and also among Jewish partisan groups that resisted the Nazi armies. These songs, all in Yiddish, are not well known, but deserve to have a much broader audience. They are both moving as well as beautiful reminders of the courage that Jews in Eastern Europe and the occupied Soviet territories demonstrated during these terribly dark years. During those years, in Elie Wiesels words, Jews found strength and inspiration to impart their spirit, their despair, their heroism in Jewish song.
We think that bringing a concert of these Russian and Jewish songs to audiences here in the greater New Orleans region will make an important addition to our citys understanding of the war. It can also serve to remind us of cultural legacies of other theaters of the war, and particularly the colossal confrontation between Soviet and Nazi armies on the Eastern front. For many, we suspect, the Jewish songs that we plan as part of our program will be a total revelation.
In order to realize the program that we have in mind, we have invited two particularly gifted singers and three experienced musicians as accompanists. The first singer is Toronto resident TERESA TOVA. The daughter of Holocaust survivors, Teresa is a gifted artist who will perform our selection of Jewish songs in Yiddish and in English. For more on her background and accomplishments, please consult her website at http://www.theresatova.com.
A second singer, slated to perform, is the extraordinary cabaret singer AELITA. Aelita sings songs in literally sixteen languages, and thus has the capacity to add a broad selection of songs to our program. She will join Teresa Tova in bringing Russian as well as Jewish songs to our program. For more on Aelitas work, see here website at http://www.aelitamusic.com/first.htm.
NATASHA O. RAMER, herself, is a renowned cabaret singer in New Orleans. In 2003 she presented a one-person show at Le Chat Noir, and in 2004 she presented the same program both in New York City and in Moscow. This was recorded at the Central Moscow TV network under the title of POETRY THEATER WITH ROMAN VIKTIUK that was broadcast not only throughout Russia but also throughout Europe, Israel and the United States.
VADIM KOLPAKOV is one of the most prominent and renowned Russian Roma (Gypsy) 7-string guitarists in the world. He was a lead musician of the Moscow Roma (Gypsy) Theatre Romen, where he performed as a guitarist, composer, vocalist, dancer and dramatic actor. To this day, his original guitar compositions are performed in many prominent plays at the theatre as part of the vibrant oral tradition of the Russian Roma culture. For more on Vadims work, see his website at: http://www.vadimkolpakov.com/
JOHN JOYCE is a Juilliard-trained musicologist, veteran of Pete Fountain's band, Joyce is editor of The Jazz Archivist at Tulane University in New Orleans and has recently edited the works of Sam Morgan's Jazz Band of the 1920s.
Master Pianist BORIS FOGEL performed with singers of the Bolshoi Theatre, in performances of Russian Romances as well as Gypsy and Yiddish songs. He also accompanied the actors of two prestigious Russian Theatres: the Moscow Academic Theater of Satire and Vakhtangov State Academic Theater. Boris came to New Orleans to perform for Tulane Universitys TIDES program.
The songs will be performed in Russian, Yiddish, and English with accompanying real-time translations.
Please join us for what will prove to be a most memorable evening!
Tickets are non-refundable.
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LocationMarigny Opera House (View)
725 St. Ferdinand Street
New Orleans, LA 70117
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: Yes! |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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