music

COURTESY OF THE DEFIANT REQUIEM FOUNDATION/DESIGNED BY GUT INSTINCT CREATIVE

arts&life

Hope From Horror

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Maestro Murry Sidlin

brings his multimedia

Defi ant Requiem:

Verdi at Terezin

— a true story of art

and courage during

the Holocaust

— to Detroit.

44

April 20 • 2017

M

urry Sidlin happened by a sidewalk used-
book sale and noticed Music in Terezin,
1941-1945 by Joza Karas.
The title of the book resonated with the award-
winning conductor. His own father had mourned
relatives murdered in Latvia and introduced his son
to books and movies that documented the wider
devastation.
Sidlin, on the faculty of the University of
Minnesota at the time, read about the Nazi
ghetto and concentration camp, also known
as Theresienstadt, in German-occupied
Czechoslovakia. He became intrigued with the
history of Rafael Schachter, a conductor taken to
Terezin where he organized a chorus of 150 prison-
ers, taught them Verdi’s Requiem by rote and led

jn

Rafael Schachter

them through 16 performances of the work.
Sidlin, who went on to become resident conduc-
tor of the Oregon Symphony and others, researched
Schachter’s initiative and met with survivors who
had been in the chorus. He also visited Terezin.
Already working on concert-dramas that com-
bined music, narration and multimedia elements,
Sidlin developed a concert-drama entitled Defiant
Requiem: Verdi at Terezin and established the
Defiant Requiem Foundation to support presenta-
tions through film and related programming.
The concert-drama, performed internationally
with Sidlin as conductor, makes its Michigan debut
May 4 at Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield
and May 6-7 at Orchestra Hall in Detroit.
The presentations feature the Detroit Symphony

