MAY 6 • 2021 | 37

“THE CONCERT 
IS STRUNG 
FROM A BROAD 
RANGE OF 
OUR 

REPERTOIRE.”

— ABIGAIL ROJANSKY

DIVERSE CULTURES
Verona, whose recogni-
tion has included the 2020 
Chamber Music America’s 
Cleveland Quartet Award, 
performs music by many 
Jewish composers. 
“I’ve been doing a lot 
of research, especially on 
Jewish composers who 
have been lost in history, 
and I’ve been struck by the 
incredible music that is 
out there and the promi-
nent part of that music in 
classical repertoire,” said 
Rojansky, who had her 
bat mitzvah in California 
and has visited relatives in 
Israel. 
“When it was an anni-
versary of Mieczyslaw 
Weinberg, a very famous 
and beloved Jewish com-
poser, we performed 
Weinberg works within 
that season. 
“We love and play a lot 
of Shostakovich, who was 
an advocate of Weinberg.”
With an interest in mix-
ing the artistry of different 
cultures, Verona worked 
with Chamber Music Abu 
Dhabi to appear before 
audiences in the United 

Arab Emirates (UAE). One 
requested project involved 
a collaboration with local 
poets. 
“Poetry is a very import-
ant part of the artistic cul-
ture in the UAE,” Rojansky 
explained. 
“Their poets are celeb-
rities, kind of like rock 
stars, and we suggested 
some Western classical 
music. The poets listened 
and wrote poems in 
Arabic — we got English 
translations — based 
on this music they had 
never heard. Without the 
background, they got the 
essence.”
Verona, which has per-
formed in Kalamazoo 
and participated in a 
music competition at the 
University of Michigan, 
has continuing goals that 
involve diversity in com-
posers, timelines, styles 
and cultural origins with a 
connecting story. 
They chose the name 
Verona because of its 
prominence in the 
storylines of William 
Shakespeare. 

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