Music for the soul; a treat for the brain. Thought you’d like to hear a mini excerpt from a new CD.

Dear Audience:

The music and introductory text of ‘Themes for Survivors” “Temas para Survientes” with introductory text and music by Luis Feder with texts in Yiddish, Hebrew, and Aramic, is going to be prefaced in the voice of my late, dear friend and distinguished colleague, Dr. Merton Gill, who translated from Spanish and recorded it in Chicago in the Winter 1981. He established the precondition for this recording to delete whatever he was not in agreement with. As a result, he took out the name of Dr. Anna Ornstein, for her own protection and gave me his reasons. Dr. Ornstein was the one who stimulated with her story, this whole musical project. He also went to great trouble to contact his brother who in turn consulted a Rabbi, and the Rabbi sent me a quotation from the scriptures establishing that a Jew could not gladden with the death of his slain enemy. I do not recall this kind of an indication in my Spanish text, but I fully agree with all the preconditions. As a result, I had the privilege of getting his rich, raw, baritone voice, his prestigious translation and adaptation, the humanitarian preconditions, and the recognition and enthusiasm that he showed to my first symphonic chorale. It has been heard in many lands and played in Villa de Janedo, Brasil on the eighth of May anniversary of the Nazi signature of surrender to the allies.

“Themes for Survivors” has been proposed as part of a disk where Arnold Rosner’s moving work from the Dairies of Arancho Yakov , Ernest Block poem Troi Poems Juisse would be included. It is to be performed by the Phiharmonia of London and to be recorded by Harmony Mundi, directed by Maestro David Hasmish, just as soon as the funds for the event are gathered.

Meanwhile, kindly accept a more modest recording by one of our best orchestral groups, Orchestra Symphonica of Mexico, our national Symphony Orchestra directed at the Jewish Music Festival by Maestro Lazlo Roth, in its world premiere March 12th, 1990, here in Mexico City, at the Teatro Oringiolisli where the use of the horns and the blowing of the Shofarim bursting in a protest that no deniers of the Holocaust could ever silence.

The performance lasts approximately 25 minutes. I hope you enjoy it. This is Luis Feder, Mexico City, December 8th, 1995.

Themes for Survivors by Luis Feder

ANN ARBOR NEWS 1/27/08
OTHER VOICES, pg. A- 16
Reprinted with permission of Ann Arbor News

The buzz word in politics these days is “change”. All of the candidates for President of the United States feel they have the answers to change our considerable economic, domestic, and foreign maladies. As I stay glued to the news and TV to watch votes counted, speeches and images revised, and issues and personalities debated there is one important topic that I have not heard addressed that has the capacity to bring healing, well-being, and the potential for change to our distressed communities. That topic is the arts – which includes music (all forms), visual arts, theater, dance. All of the arts are part of the fabric of our emotional lives. Our cultural heritage in the United States can make a difference in the quality of life in our communities – if we tune it to it.