Photo Coverage: Judith Clurman and Essential Voices USA Present AUSTRIAN EMIGRES

Judith Clurman's Essential Voices USA (EVUSA), one of New York's preeminent choral ensembles, just presented as part of Essential Voices USA's "The Composer Speaks" programs, Austrian Émigrés: Schoenberg, Von Trapp and the Power of Music, on March 30, at 7:30 PM at the DiMenna Space for Classical Music.. Judith Clurman conducted Essential Voices USA with Tedd Firth, piano; Maureen McKay, soprano; and Joseph Beutel, bass-baritone. Panel members will include Larry Schoenberg, son of the composer; Elisabeth Von Trapp, granddaughter of the legendary Maria and Baron von Trapp; musical theater luminaries Ted Chapin, David Chase, andLarry Hochman; composer David Ludwig; with moderator Naomi Lewin.

This program explored the stories of two Austrian émigrés whose experiences have been captured in important musical compositions. In 1947, with the sights and sounds of war ringing in his ears, Arnold Schoenberg composed Survivor from Warsaw as a tribute to the victims of the Holocaust. Twelve years later, the team of Rodgers and Hammerstein recreated the experience of the Von Trapp family in the iconic musical The Sound of Music.

Schoenberg works performed included: A Survivor from Warsaw, Op. 46 (piano version by Kurt Frederick), for narrator and chorus; two A Cappella choral works: Am Scheideweg, Op. 28 n.1 and Dreimal tausend Jahre, Op. 50A; two of the Brettl-Lieder (Cabaret Songs: "Galathea" and "Gigerlette"), for soprano and piano; and the rarely heard Wiegenlied duet for soprano, baritone and piano. The Sound of Music Suite (including "The Sound of Music," "My Favorite Things," "Edelweiss," "Climb Ev'ry Mountain," and "Do-Re-Mi"), in a new version arranged by David Chase, for solo piano, soprano, baritone, and chorus, will receive its United States premiere (its world premiere occurred in Salzburg this past summer, with Judith Clurman conducting the Österreich Festival Orchestra and Chorus at the Mozarteum Grosser Saal).