From  Ars Choralis:

In the darkest times, music provides solace and illustrates what is best in the human spirit.

During the depths of World War II, Jewish women musicians incarcerated at the Auschwitz/Birchenau concentration camp were required to play for their Nazi captors. This is a story about how music saved the lives of those women. It is also the story of a small-town chorus that has brought back the music, hope, grief and resilience of these women.

Over one million people, mostly Jewish, were murdered in Birkenau gas chambers.  In exchange for their survival, a women’s orchestra was formed by the S.S. at Birchenau.  During the year and a half it existed, 54 women participated in the orchestra.  All but the conductor survived.

Two years ago, Barbara Pickhardt, conductor of the Woodstock, NY chorus, Ars Choralis, researched survivor’s memoirs and created Music in Desperate Times: Remembering the Women’s Orchestra of Birkenau.  The concert interwove orchestral music of Schumann, Chopin, Puccini, Mendelssohn and others, with spoken memoirs and songs of hope, peace and resistance sung by the chorus.

Wearing the simple lavender scarves and white blouses worn by the Birchenau musicians, the members of the reconstructed orchestra felt a shiver of connection to the original orchestra as they played arrangements of the same music played in the camps.

Ars Choralis performed Music in Desperate Times: Remembering the Women’s Orchestra of Birchenau to great acclaim in Hudson Valley churches, colleges and synagogues. The audience response was so powerful that repeat performances were demanded. Now Ars Choralis has been invited to perform this concert at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan and in Germany.

• The performance of Music in Desperate Times at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine will be on Saturday March 28, 2009 at 8 PM.  This landmark church is the largest Anglican Cathedral in North America.

If you have never visited this cathedral, or perhaps any other cathedral, it is quite a place to see and I would recommend setting aside some time to look through this vast and fascinating space.

• Survivors of the Ravensbrück concentration camp in Furstenberg, Germany have invited Ars Choralis to perform at their annual Liberation Day ceremonies on April 18 and 19, 2009 on the grounds of the camp.

• Heilig Kreuz Passion Church in Berlin has invited Ars Choralis to perform Music in Desperate Times on Friday, April 17, 2009.

The cost of producing the concerts and traveling to Germany is unprecedented for Ars Choralis.  We hope to gain support for this magnificent endeavor through ticket sales and donations.  

Tickets to the March 28th performance at the Cathedral are:

• $45.00 front section, reserved seats
• $35.00 front section, unreserved
• $25.00 general seating

Many  thanks to Rochelle Saidel of the Remember the Women Institute for bringing this concert to our attention.