Download Artist Bios - Museum of Jewish Heritage

MARC NEIKRUG
COMPOSER AND CONDUCTOR
A multi-faceted artist, Marc Neikrug is primarily a composer, who is also active
as a pianist and conductor. In addition, he is currently the artistic director of the Santa
Fé Chamber Music Festival. His compositions have been commissioned and performed
by major festivals, orchestras, and opera houses worldwide, and he has served as
composer in residence with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Among Mr. Neikrug’s
compositions are two music-theater works—Through Roses and Los Alamos. Through
Roses has been produced in 11 languages in 15 countries and performed over 500 times.
Two CDs, a documentary by Christopher Nupen, and a feature film by Jurgen Flimm of
Through Roses have been produced as well. Los Alamos, an anti-nuclear piece, was the
first opera commissioned from an American composer by the Deutsche Opera Berlin.
The opera, which traces the history of Los Alamos from the days of the ancient Pueblo
Indians to 2000 years into the future, premiered at the Berlin Festival in 1988. As a
pianist Mr. Neikrug has performed worldwide, and since 1975 has appeared with
Pinchas Zukerman at major festivals and concert halls. As a conductor he leads
performances of his works in both the U.S. and abroad. In the late 1980s and early
1990s he conceived of and directed the month-long Melbourne Summer Music Festival.
He also consults on artistic planning with the National Arts Center in Ottawa.
SAUL RUBINEK
ACTOR AND DIRECTOR
Since first performing the part of Carl Stern in Marc Neikrug’s Through Roses
(Toronto 2006), it has been observed on more than one occasion that Saul Rubinek was
born to play the role. Mr. Rubinek’s father ran a Yiddish repertory theater company in
the displaced persons (D.P.) camp where his son was born during World War II. His
account of his parents’ survival, thanks to the bravery of a Polish farming family,
provided the basis for “So Many Miracles,” a documentary, which aired on CBC and PBS
in 1988. Mr. Rubinek, whose first language was Yiddish, began his professional career
as a child actor in Canada in theater and radio. He was a member of the Stratford
Shakespeare Festival Company in Stratford, Ontario, and later was a co-founder, actor,
and director of Theatre Le Hibou, Theatre Passe-Murraille, and Toronto Free Theatre.
He has been nominated for many awards in Canada for his work on stage, radio,
television, and film, winning a Grammalogue award for his work in Des McAnuff’s As
You Like It and a supporting actor Genie for his work in the Canadian feature Ticket to
Heaven. Mr. Rubinek started working in the U.S. as an actor at New York’s Public
Theater, and for several years divided his time between theaters in Toronto and OffBroadway. In the U.S. he has been seen in such productions as HBO’s And the Band
Played On. He played Henry Kissinger in Joel Wyner’s Dick and W.W. Beauchamp in
Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven and had a recurring role on the NBC series Frasier. Mr.
Rubinek co-starred in Getting Even with Dad with Macaulay Culkin and Ted Danson
and in the Disney comedy-thriller I Love Trouble with Nick Nolte and Julia Roberts. He
made his feature directorial debut in Jerry and Tom, a black comedy featuring Joe
Mantegna, William H. Macy, and Maury Chaykin.
DANIEL PHILLIPS
VIOLINIST
Daniel Phillips enjoys a versatile career as an established chamber musician, solo artist,
and teacher. Professor of Violin at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens
College, Mr. Phillips is a co-founder of the Orion String Quartet, which serves as
resident quartet of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Born into a musical
family, he began his violin studies with his father Eugene Phillips, a composer and
former violinist with the Pittsburgh Symphony. He continued his professional training
at the Juilliard School with Ivan Galamian and Sally Thomas, and worked extensively
with, and served as teaching assistant to, Sándor Végh. As a winner of the Young
Concert Artists International Auditions, he gave acclaimed debuts at the 92nd Street Y
and at Alice Tully Hall in New York City. Mr. Phillips has performed as a soloist with
many of the country's leading symphonies, including Pittsburgh, Houston, New Jersey,
Phoenix and San Antonio, as well as the Bern Symphony Orchestra of Switzerland. He is
a veteran of the Marlboro Music Festival and a past participant at the Lockenhaus
Kammermusikfest. For Sony, he toured and recorded in a string quartet with Gidon
Kremer, Kim Kashkashian, and Yo-Yo Ma. His other recordings can be heard on the
Nonesuch, Bridge, and Musical Heritage labels.
ROBERT POMAKOV
BASS
Canadian bass Robert Pomakov has already earned attention for his unique voice and
musicianship in opera, concert and recital. Only 27 years old, he is a recent graduate of
The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, The Royal Conservatory of Music, and the
world-renowned St. Michael’s Choir College in Toronto. In the 2007-08 season, Mr.
Pomakov returned to the Canadian Opera Company as Petrovi_ Gorjan_ikov in a new
Dmitri Bertman production of Janá_ek’s From the House of the Dead. He also sang
Angelotti in Tosca, as well as a recital, with the COC. His Slavic season continued with
his debut at Minnesota Opera as Vodnik in a new production of Dvorak’s Rusalka. After
singing performances at the Lanaudiere Festival in a concert version of Tchaikovsky’s
Eugene Onegin, he performed Shostakovich’s Symphony #14 with the Manitoba
Chamber Orchestra and Handel’s Messiah under the baton of Giancarlo Guerrero with
the Pacific Symphony. Mr. Pomakov also made his debut with the Choral Arts Society of
Washington, DC in Rachmaninov's The Bells and the Coronation Scene from Boris
Godunov. His European season was highlighted by his debut at the Teatro Real, Madrid
as Nikitich in Boris Godunov conducted by Jesus Lopez-Cobos and opposite Samuel
Ramey.
Mr. Pomakov made his professional concert debut in 1998 and his Canadian Opera
Company debut in a concert with baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky in 1999. Other notable
performances have included the Roy Thomson Hall Millennium Opera Gala with the
Toronto Symphony Orchestra (released on CBC Records), Houston Grand Opera debut
in the dual roles of Varlaam and Shalkalov in Boris Godunov, as well as his
Concertgebouw debut with the European Union Baroque Orchestra. He has performed
with such organizations as L’Opera de Quebec, the Academy of Ancient Music, the
Montreal Symphony, the Winnipeg Symphony, the Monnaie Opera Orchestra, the
Brandywine Baroque, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the Opera Company of
Philadelphia.
CHRIS PEDRO TRAKAS
BARITONE
Chris Pedro Trakas, described by The New York Times as “outstanding…an elegant
baritone with a commanding sound,” is known for the passionate vocalism he brings to
an eclectic repertoire ranging from Mozart, Schubert, Rossini, Mahler and Debussy
through Britten, Bernstein, Bolcom, Adams, and Ellington on opera, concert, and recital
stages in the U.S. and abroad. Among the many highlights of his career are the roles of
Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Metropolitan Opera; the Count opposite Renée
Fleming in Menotti’s production of Le Nozze di Figaro at the Spoleto Festivals in
America and Italy; Alberich in Wagner’s Rheingold with Jonathan Sheffer’s Eos
Orchestra; and Figaro in the St. Ann’s Warehouse puppet production of The Barber of
Seville. His interest in contemporary opera includes two world premieres by Stewart
Wallace—Hopper’s Wife and Yiddisher Teddy Bears. The Naumburg Award winner is a
sought-after concert artist who has sung with such top orchestras as the Chicago,
National, and Detroit Symphony Orchestras; The Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Israel
Philharmonic. A distinguished recitalist, as well, Mr. Trakas has performed with such
important pianists as James Levine. Last season he gave the first complete performance
of Schubert’s Winterreise in Malta with pianist Myron McPherson and premiered David
Del Tredici’s complete 35-minute song cycle, Love Addiction, in New York with the
composer at the piano.
MICHAEL BECKERMAN - A CZECH GERSHWIN IN NEW YORK
Michael Beckerman is a scholar, lecturer, and educator. He has written several
books on Czech topics, including, most recently, New Worlds of Dvorák (Norton,
2003); Janácek and His World (Princeton, 2003); and Martinu’s Mysterious Accident
(Pendragon, 2007). He is at present working on a book and documentary about the last
composition written in the Terezin concentration camp by Gideon Klein, and also on a
project on music and the idyllic. He has written frequently for The New York Times,
has appeared numerous times on PBS’s Live from Lincoln Center, and has lectured
throughout the United States and Europe. A recipient of the Janácek Medal from the
Czech Ministry of Culture, he is also a laureate of the Czech Music Council and has twice
received the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for his work on Dvorák. He is currently a
Professor of Music at New York University.
GOTTFRIED WAGNER - ENTARTETE MUSIK ((DEGENERATE MUSIC)
Gottfried Wagner is a freelance music historian and multimedia director focusing
and 20th century German-Jewish history, such as anti-Semitism and music, Nazi
on
persecuted composers like Kurt Weill, “Degenerate” music in the Third Reich, and
culture in Theresienstadt. He has spoken and published on the consequences of the
anti-Semitism of his great-grandfather Richard Wagner and on the connection of the
19th
Wagner family to the development of German anti-Semitism and National Socialism. He
is highly interested in ethical issues after the Shoah, as expressed in his historical and
personal approach to the Post Shoah Dialogue with Abraham Peck, and has served as
music dramaturgical adviser for The Lost Childhood, an opera by composer Janice
Hamer with the libretto by poet Mary Azrael. *** for description of Mr. Wagner’s
program please see below.
BRET WERB - “WE WILL NEVER DIE”
Bret Werb has served as the staff musicologist at the US Holocaust Memorial
Museum in Washington, DC, since 1992. He has researched and produced three albums
of Yiddish songs from the Holocaust period: Krakow Ghetto Notebook; Rise Up and
Fight!: Songs of Jewish Partisans; and Hidden History; Songs of the Kovno Ghetto.
He is also co-author of the articles “Yiddish Theatre and Art Song” and “Holocaust” in
the recent edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Bret Werb
earned his MA and Ph.D. in ethnomusicology at UCLA.
JAMES ANAGNOSON
PIANIST
Boston-born pianist James Anagnoson is one half of the piano duo Anagnoson &
Kinton. Since Mr. Anagnoson and Leslie Kinton began performing together in 1976,
they have given more than 1000 concerts throughout Canada, the U.S., Europe, and Asia
and have made nine recordings. Their works are heard regularly on the CBC, as well as
on NPR in the United States and on various European radio networks. Mr. Anagnoson
was recently appointed Dean of the Glenn Gould School at Canada’s Royal Conservatory
of Music, where he has been a faculty member since 1997. In his new position, Mr.
Anagnoson is responsible for the artistic direction and financial stability of the school,
which is a center for professional training in music performance at the bachelor and
graduate levels.
TIMOTHY EDDY
CELLO
Cellist Timothy Eddy has earned distinction as a recitalist, soloist with orchestra,
chamber musician, recording artist, and teacher of cello and chamber music. He has
performed with numerous orchestras across the country, and his festival appearances
include Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, Aspen, Santa Fe, Marlboro, Lockenhaus, Spoleto, and
Sarasota. Mr. Eddy has won prizes in many national and international competitions,
including the 1975 Gaspar Cassado International Violoncello Competition in Italy. He is
currently professor of cello at The Juilliard School and New York's Mannes College of
Music, and he was a faculty member at the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshops at
Carnegie Hall. A former member of the Galimir Quartet, the New York Philomusica,
and the Bach Aria Group, he collaborates regularly in recital with pianist Gilbert Kalish.
Mr. Eddy has recorded a wide range of repertoire from Baroque to avant-garde for the
Angel, Arabesque, Columbia, CRI, Delos, Musical Heritage, New World, Nonesuch,
Vanguard, Vox, and Sony Classical labels.
JONATHAN HAAS
PERCUSSIONIST
Timpanist Jonathan Haas has raised the status of the timpani to that of a solo
instrument in a career that has spanned more than 25 years. From classical concertos to
jazz and rock and roll, and from symphonic masterpieces to the most experimental
compositions of living composers, Mr. Haas has championed, commissioned, unearthed
and celebrated music for timpani. His efforts to expand the timpani repertoire have led
him to commission and premiere more than 25 works by such composers as Stephen
Albert, Marius Constant, Irwin Bazelon, Eric Ewazen, Thomas Hamilton, Robert Hall
Lewis, Jean Piche, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Andrew Thomas. He garnered
widespread praise and attention for his performances of Philip Glass's Concerto
Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra, conceived by Haas, featuring two
timpanists and 14 timpani. Mr. Haas premiered the concerto in 2000, and since then, it
has not only been performed in dozens of concerts on three continents, but also has
been premiered in chamber and wind ensemble versions. Moreover, the Concerto, with
Jonathan Haas and Evelyn Glennie, has been released on Philip Glass's Orange
Mountain Music label. Two recordings by Mr. Haas on Sunset Records are 18th
Century Concertos for Timpani and Orchestra and Johnny H. and the Prisoners of
Swing, the latter named for his jazz group. It features “hot timpani” renderings of jazz
compositions with a full jazz ensemble and includes Tympaturbably Blue, Duke
Ellington’s composition for jazz timpani, rediscovered by Mr. Haas. Mr. Haas has been
featured on NPR's Fresh Air and Classical Public Radio’s Dial-A-Musician, which
introduced him as "The only solo virtuoso timpanist around, the superstar of the
timpani."
ALAN KAY
CLARINET
Clarinetist Alan R. Kay is one of the most versatile and respected musicians of his
generation. A member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra since 2002 and principal
clarinet with New York’s Riverside Symphony, he also performs as principal clarinet
with the American Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and at American
Ballet Theater. Recipient of the C.D. Jackson Award at Tanglewood, Mr. Kay has
recorded widely, most recently with Windscape in a CD entitled "The Roaring
Twenties." As artistic director of the New York Chamber Ensemble, his series of
thematic chamber music programs with the ensemble has become the Cape May Music
Festival's top-drawing classical event. He has been heard nationwide on PRI's St. Paul
Sunday and Performance Today and throughout Canada on the CBC. He also appears
with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Da Camera of Houston, and with
the Santa Fe and Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festivals. A published arranger, he
has adapted works of Kurt Weill, Mozart, Debussy, and Zez Confrey for various chamber
ensemble combinations. As a conductor, Mr. Kay studied at Juilliard under Otto-Werner
Mueller and has appeared with the Jupiter, Staten Island, and Buck's County
Symphonies, the Cape May Festival Orchestra, and the New York Chamber Ensemble.
He recently led Raphael Mostel's theater piece, The Adventures of Babar, at Gould Hall
at the Alliance Francaise in New York.
ANNE-MARIE MCDERMOTT
PIANO
Anne-Marie McDermott performs as a recitalist, concert artist, and chamber
music artist in a wide range of repertoire from Bach and Mozart to Prokofiev and
Rachmaninoff. Since her 1997 debut with the New York Philharmonic, she has played
with major orchestras across the country, as well as engagements with the Hong Kong
Philharmonic, the Brandenburg Ensemble at the Kennedy Center, the Moscow Virtuosi
in Boston and New York, the New York Pops, and a U.S. tour with the Australian
Chamber Orchestra. Among her festival appearances are Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, Aspen,
Bravo! Vail Valley, Santa Fe, Spoleto, Chamber Music Northwest, Newport, the
Dubrovnik Festival, and Festival Casals. A recipient of the Avery Fisher Career
Development Award and Young Concert Artists Auditions, Ms. McDermott is an artist
member of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and continues her association
with violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg in duo-recitals throughout the country. A
passionate champion of the music of Prokofiev, Anne-Marie McDermott performed the
complete cycle of his sonatas at the Lincoln Center Festival, as well as in Tucson,
Portland, and Los Angeles. She has recorded Prokofiev sonatas for Arabesque
Recordings, and her all-Bach recording, re-released on the NSS Music Label, was named
a Grammophone Magazine Editor's Choice.
STEPHEN TAYLOR
OBOE
Oboist Stephen Taylor holds the Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III solo oboe chair with
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He is also solo oboe with the New York
Woodwind Quintet, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble
(where he is co-director of chamber music), the American Composers Orchestra, the
New England Bach Festival Orchestra, Speculum Musicae, and is co-principal oboe with
the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He appears regularly at such major festivals as
Spoleto, Caramoor, Aldeburgh, Bravo! Colorado, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival,
Aspen Music Festival, and Schleswig-Holstein. Mr. Taylor has made more than 200
recordings, including premieres of the Wolpe Oboe Quartet, works by André Previn, and
many Elliott Carter works including A Mirror on Which to Dwell, Syringa, Tempo e
Tempi, Trilogy for Oboe and Harp, Oboe Quartet, A 6 Letter Letter, and Oboe Quartet,
for which Mr. Taylor received a Grammy nomination. Trained at The Juilliard School,
Mr. Taylor is a member of its faculty, as well as of the Yale School of Music, SUNY Stony
Brook, and Manhattan School of Music. He received a performer’s grant from Fromm
Music Foundation at Harvard University in 1981.
STEVEN TENENBOM
VIOLA
Violist Steven Tenenbom has established a distinguished career as a chamber
musician, soloist, recitalist and teacher. He has worked with such artists as composer
Lukas Foss and Chick Corea and has appeared with such eminent ensembles as the
Guarneri and Emerson String Quartets, the Beaux Arts and Kalichstein-LaredoRobinson Trios, and The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He has performed
as soloist with several U.S. orchestras and toured with the Brandenburg Ensemble
throughout the United States and Japan. Among Mr. Tenenbom’s festival credits are
Mostly Mozart, Aspen, Ravinia, Marlboro, and Bravo! Colorado. A recipient of the
Coleman Chamber Music award and a former member of the Galimir Quartet, he is
currently a member of TASHI and the piano quartet OPUS ONE. Mr. Tenenbom is on
the faculties of The Curtis Institute of Music, The Bard College Conservatory of Music,
and New York's Mannes College of Music. He has recorded on RCA Records with TASHI
and the Guarneri String Quartet, and can also be heard on the Arabesque, Delos, ECM,
Marlboro Recording Society, and Sony Classical labels.
***70 years after the November pogrom of 1938 [ Kristallnacht]
Defining a contemporary relevance for history, art and ethics
MULTIMEDIA LECTURE BY GOTTFRIED WAGNER
MUSEUM OF JEWISH HERITAGE NEW YORK CITY - NOVEMBER 12, 2008
In the first part of his multimedia lecture, Gottfried Wagner will summarize crucial
parts of the Nazi legislation against Jews from Hitler’s seizure to power of January 30,
1933 until the beginning of the Shoah, the night of the November 9-10 pogrom
[Kristallnacht] of 1938.
The second part will concentrate on the avant-garde arts in the Republic of Weimar, its
importance for European culture and its destruction, starting with the Nazi burning of
the books on March 10, 1993 and climaxing in the exhibitions “ Degenerate” Arts in
Munich 1937 and “Degenerate” Music in Düsseldorf 1938.
The third part is dedicated to the personal post Shoah responsibility in the arts and
ethics. It will present the speaker’s reflections of memory as part of his Post Shoah
Dialogue experiences, including the poetry Four November 9ths by Anne- Marie
Levine, as well as end of the opera Lost Childhood by the composer Janice Hamer in its
Tel Aviv workshop version of July 29, 2007.