‘Thwarted Voices’ concert at UMaine

ORONO – University of Maine music professor Phillip Silver will give the annual “Thwarted Voices” concert at 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 24, at Minsky Recital Hall in the Class of 1944 Hall. The concert will feature music of Holocaust-era composers and offers a diverse blend of compositions ranging from sensuously melodic to bold and powerful. Admission is $6.

Now in its fifth season, Silver’s “Thwarted Voices” concert series is deeply personal for him and an opportunity to perform what is called “forgotten music” composed by Jewish musicians victimized by the Nationalist Socialist racist policies of the Holocaust in Europe. Some composers perished in Nazi concentration camps and others escaped by fleeing, in some cases to America. But much of their music has remained unperformed over the years.

Traditionally, the concert has been in the winter, but Silver rescheduled it to fall because weather conditions are more accommodating.

For this year’s concert, Silver has selected music composed both before and during the Nazi period. Contrary to some perceptions, the music is varied and much of it bright and spirited, unlike the dark and melancholy images of the Holocaust, said Silver, an internationally recognized piano soloist and collaborator who continues to research the music and musicians caught up in the Holocaust.

He is motivated, he said, by the tragedy of the Holocaust and the loss for half a century, in some cases, of “extraordinary” music that has been suppressed by history.

“I’m overwhelmed by the high quality of the music,” he said. “There really is a vast, vast amount of music that was lost for generations that is now slowly working its way back” for public enjoyment.

Cellist Noreen Silver, a University of Maine School of Performing Arts music instructor, and Deborah Cook, an acclaimed international soprano and instructor of voice, will join Silver on stage.

Aside from its historic significance, the music is generally appealing, Silver said.

“I think it’s a very varied program, but it’s also accessible. The music will place demands on the listener but it’s not going to turn anybody away,” he said.

This year’s “Thwarted Voices” concert includes the American premiere of a suite for piano by Erich Zeisl, a powerful neo-romantic sonata for cello and piano by Karl Weigl, two Walt Whitman settings by Franz Schreker and the world premiere performance of a work by Paul Ben-Haim composed before his flight from Nazi Germany.

The music varies from “sensual, lush and French-oriented with a lot of impressionistic elements” to “profound and morose.”

“Die Heinzelmannchen” by Zeisl, a “bright, rich composition full of wonderful tunes and vibrancy,” was last performed in Vienna in 1923 and never in the United States, said Silver who obtained the score from Zeisl’s grandson.

The effort to bring Holocaust-era music to an active performance repertoire globally “brings works of genius to the attention of audiences while simultaneously rectifying a tragic historic injustice,” said Silver, who lost relatives to the Holocaust.

A member of the London-based International Forum for Suppressed Music, Silver obtains some of his Thwarted Voices music from relatives of Holocaust-era composers. He also is a member of the advisory board of The Inextinguishable Symphony Project, an educational project about the J?dische Kulturband in Germany, the Jewish Cultural Association formed in 1933 after Jews were banned from public employment.

Deborah Cook, who made her debut at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in 1976 as Gilda in “Rigoletto,” lived in Germany from 1972 through 1985, and traveled extensively throughout Europe and the world performing opera, lieder and recording for radio productions. She has taught voice in the United States, in London and Germany. She has recorded with the Philharmonica Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra and has performed many of the major operatic soprano roles in major opera houses of the world.

Cellist Noreen Silver frequently collaborates with Phillip Silver, with whom she is a member of the Silver Duo at UMaine.