Musical Tradition Returns
Congregation Shaarey Zedek brings back Weisberg Concert with trio of renowned classical performers.
Violinist Yehonatan Berick
BILL CARROLL
Special to the Jewish
1147
1 ith the sounds of great performers
of the past echoing through the
sanctuary, Congregation Shaarey
Zedek in Southfield will again come
alive with classical concert music Wednesday, June
2, with the revival of the Peter and Clara
Weisberg Concert.
Appropriately titled "Israeli Inspiration," the
concert will feature classical and Israeli music by
three Israel-born artists: cellist Yehuda Hanani,
violinist Yehonatan Berick and pianist Eliran
Avni.
They will play, as a trio and in duets, selections
by Felix Mendelssohn, Max Bruch, Robert
Schumann, Edmond DeFaia and Niccolo
Paginini.
It took the perseverance of Cantor Chaim
Najman, the devotion of Weisberg family patri-
arch Harvey L. Weisberg of Bloomfield Hills and
the leadership of Beverly Baker, also of
Bloomfield Hills and chairwoman of a 53-mem-
ber committee, to bring the concert back after a
three-year absence.
The big difference now is that the concert —
free to the public since renowned opera tenor Jan
Peerce launched it in 1980 — has an admission
charge.
"The officers and board of the synagogue have
decided that nothing of this magnitude will be
free anymore," Baker explained. "The concert will
cost $10 per person. It's a small price to pay for
the opportunity to hear great classical music."
Pianist Eliran Avni
Cellist Yehucla Hanani
Opinions differ on what caused the concert's
hiatus. Some blame it on the poor economy; the
cost of the concert reached a peak of $32,000 in
1998. Others say it was an insurmountable con-
flict of dates among the artists and other events in
the community.
Besides Peerce, past concert performers have
included singers Roberta Peters and Robert
Merrill, violinists Daniel Heifetz, Pinchus
Zukerman and Joseph Silverstein and pianist
Ruth Laredo.
"The Weisberg family is pleased to have
brought this music to the public under an endow-
ment form," said Harvey Weisberg, "and now
we're extremely happy it's being revived." The late
Peter and Clara Weisberg, his parents, were music
lovers and philanthropists.
Cantor Najman, who joined Shaarey Zedek a
year before the inaugural concert, helped the
Weisbergs nurture the concert along through the
years, and now is working with Baker's committee
on all aspects of "Israeli Inspiration."
"The Weisberg concert has been [a] premier
music event in the Jewish community for many
years, and we're delighted to offer it to the com-
munity again," he said. "We look forward to con-
tinued success of this important event."
Baker gets credit for securing cellist Hanani,
who has performed with many of the world's
major symphony orchestras and has been
described as "a master of his instrument in every
way." With a music education degree from the
University of Michigan, Baker is a former music
teacher in the Berkley School District.
Hanani "was our house guest during the Great
Lakes Chamber Music Festival last year, and I
told him we would all love to have him perform
at Shaarey Zedek," she explained. "The revival of
the Weisberg Concert was a natural forum."
Hanani, 60, who lives in Spencertown, Mass.,
was discovered as a teenager in Israel by composer
Leonard Bernstein and violinist Isaac Stern, and
came to America to study at the Juilliard School
of Music. For 45 years, with his vast cello reper-
toire, he's been playing recitals and concerts with
some of the world's top musicians. He continues
to teach three times a week at the Cincinnati
College Conservatory of Music and instruct in
master classes.
Hanani's cello, made in 1730 with a batch com-
missioned by the pope, is famous in its own right;
it is reportedly worth $1 million.
"I borrowed from everyone I knew in order to
buy it years ago," he said, "and then a benefactor
from a wealthy New York Jewish family paid them
all off and asked me to make small payments to
him each year. Then he died, and left the cello to
me free and clear.
"The instrument has just the right 'voice' for
me. Salesmen chase me around at all the concerts
to try and sell me a new cello, but I would never
part with this one. I even buy an extra seat for it
on plane rides. When I play Kol Nidre on this
cello on Yom Kippur, I am always amused because
I think back to how a pope commissioned its
manufacture. "
Accompanying Hanani will be Berick, 35, a
professor of violin at the University of Michigan
who lives in Ypsilanti, and Avni, 28, also a
Juilliard graduate.