MUSIC

November 10th 2019
Kristallnacht Commemorative Concert - A concert of unity

This year’s Kristallnacht commemoration concert on 10 November brought us more of the annual event’s distinctive quality – works associated with the Holocaust performed by leading New Zealand musicians. The concert’s impact was enhanced by taking place in Wellington’s Beth El Synagogue.
Distinguished guests included members of the diplomatic corps among whom were the ambassadors of Germany, Israel, Poland, the Netherlands and Hungary, and Deputy Chief of Mission for Italy and the United States of America.
As well as remembering the violent Nazi pogrom against the German and Austrian Jews on 9-10 November 1938, the concert  – presented jointly by the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand (HCNZ) Te Pūtahi Urupatu o Aotearoa and ​the New Zealand School of Music Te Kōki, Victoria University of Wellington – was also a Unity Concert in memory of the 15 March 2019 massacre at the Christchurch Mosques.

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To quote an audience member: “…..a truly wonderful and moving concert... Almost every piece was new to me and so beautifully played and sung, it was  a memorable and worthy commemoration of such a hideous event in our history.”
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Thank you to the following sponsors and suppliers: Adam Foundation,  Wellington Jewish Community Centre,  Wellington City Council,  Grouse Lighting, Peter Frater, GracePR and Hiremaster.
Photos: Holocaust Centre of New Zealand

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Kristallnacht Concert - November 2018

Music, remembrance and hope

With the theme of “music, remembrance and hope”, the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand’s 2018 Kristallnacht concert met all three qualities to the highest degree.
 
For this 80th anniversary of the horrifying events of 9-10 November 1938, the programme’s eight items covered a range of music by Jewish composers – two of whom perished in the Shoah (Holocaust) – and ranged from Gustav Mahler’s teenage piano quartet to the final piece, “Violins of hope,” by Israeli Ohad Ben-Ari which was first performed in Berlin on International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2015.
 

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