Arts & entertainment "High Tea" is Here! 3pm-opm Mon.-Fri. Tea • Coffee Hors d'oeuvres Dessert r msoge0weRai A Son's Tribute Andrzej Szpilman, son of "The Pianist" Wladyslaw Szpilman, releases CDs of his father's music. • "MON.,71 NAOMI PFEFFERMAN Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles DALLAS RESTAURANT & LOUNIOE INT 27909 Orchard Lake Rd. (at 12 Mile) • Farmington Hills (248) 553-9013 AVAILABLE FOR PRIVATE PARTIES Open 7 Days A Week SPECIALISTS IN CUSTOM GLASS PRODUCTS: • Eurostyle Frameless Shower Enclosures • Conventional Tub & Shower Enclosures • Custom Wall Mirrors • Mirrored BI-Fold Doors • Beveled & Etched Glass • Glass Furniture & Table Tops • Handrails Monday-Friday 5-7 ■ • HALF OFF ar ■ BBQ Grill on the Table ■ Best Sushi Bar in Town • Traditional Floor Sitting Rooms Available Free Karaoke 9:00 p.m. with dining or drinking an Drinks Appetizers 10% off our TOTAL food bill ANY TIME Excludes Happy Hour • eas Not good with any other offer expires 3131103 New Seoul. Garden 2/28 2003 74 Authentic Korean & Japanese Cuisine Phone (248) 827-1600 www.newseoulgarden.com newseoul@hotmail.com Open Daily Catering Available 27566 Northwestern Hw . hen Andrzej Szpilman was 12, he furtively rum- maged through a chest high on a shelf of a closed wardrobe in his Warsaw home. Inside the closet he found 10 copies of a book and, recognizing his father as the author, he hid one in his third-story bedroom. "I read it and received a shock," said Andrzej Szpilman, 46, a dentist and record producer who emigrated to Germany in 1983. Music of The Pianist Wladyslaw The book was Death of a City, his Szpilman, recently released by father Wladyslaw's grittily brutal, dis- Universal's Hip-0 Records, is a well- passionate 1946 memoir of hiding in received collection of jazzy ditties and around the Warsaw Ghetto. Szpilman (1911-2000) wrote from the Since Roman Polanski turned the 1930s to the 1960s. book into the searing film The Pianist "In the film, we see [Poles] helping — which has won four National Society my father because they knew his of Film Critics Awards in addition to Chopin performances, but the real best picture awards from the equivalent reason most people knew him and hid of the British and French Oscars — him was from his hit songs," his son Szpilman has become one of the best- said. "He owes his survival to this kind known Holocaust survivors in history. of music." But on that fateful Last spring, with his 1968 day, his dramatic friend Sherman Heinig, story was news to his son. a German music indus- "He had never once spo- try veteran based in Los ken of his experience," Angeles, Andrzej Andrzej Szpilman said. Szpilman brought in "He never even told me producer/arranger John he was Jewish. I think it Leftwich, who had hurt him to talk about it, worked with Rickie Lee because he survived and Jones. all his family perished." Together they hired `Music Inspired by the The film is up for writers to create new, Motion Picture 'The seven Academy Awards English-language lyrics Pianist' " includes the next month. and auditioned about 30 Gershwinesque "Our family is deeply singers before selecting "Concertino for Piano and Canadian-born moved and honored by the Academy's support of Orchestra," which chanteuse Wendy Lands. Wladyslaw Szpilman my father's story," The venture is unusual Andrzej Szpilman added. wrote while languishing in because few scripted the Warsaw Ghetto. "We are proud to share films have been able to in these accolades with generate non-soundtrack Roman Polanski and the film's extraor- albums, according to Variety. dinary cast and crew. Andrzej Szpilman said he initially "These nominations remember the invested his own money in the project heroism of the Polish Jews and the because his father, while famous in humanity of all those we lost in World Poland, never had the chance to pro- War II. Sixty years have passed, but we mote his work in the West. must 'never forget."' "His career was essentially [stunted] by the Nazis and then the Communists," he said. "But it was Enjoying A Revival painful for me that people thought of More than three decades after he dis- his music as only good enough for the WLROYSIANrotoAN OFJC,NAL RECORDNGS Visit our Southfield Gallery of Glass at: 22223 Telegraph Rd. (South of 9 Mile Rd.) 248-353-5770 248-353-0678 Fax -pr ikir covered his father's memoir hidden in that wardrobe, Andrzej Szpilman has made it his mission to bring his father's life story out of the closet, literally. In 1999, he spearheaded the reissue of the memoir, which had been banned by the Communist regime and ultimately captivated Polanski. When Polanski's screenplay depicted his father only as a virtuoso pianist, he produced CDs highlighting his father's work as a classical composer and the author of more than 500 pop songs. The latest, Wendy Lands Sings the ti