Details
Music of Resistance will be present-
ed at 6 p.m. Saturday, March 18, at
the Ukrainian American Archives &
Museum, 9630 Joseph Campau St.,
Hamtramck. $25; free under 18. Tickets
can be purchased at the door or by
calling (313) 366-9764 or connecting to
uaamdetroit@gmail.com.
T
hree musicians with family mem-
bers who experienced oppressive
governments will present a concert
filled with music and stories of composers
knowing resistance to those governments
— either during the combat in Ukraine or
the terrors of the Holocaust.
The three international performers
and college instructors include violinist
Solomia Soroka, who teaches at Goshen
College in the Indiana city of the school’s
name; pianist Phillip Silver, who teaches
as a professor at the University of Maine
in Orono, Maine; and cellist Noreen Silver,
the pianist’s wife, who also teaches at the
University of Maine.
The program, Music of Resistance, will
begin at 6 p.m. Saturday, March 18, at the
Ukrainian American Archives & Museum
in Hamtramck. The performers will be
presenting the compositions and discuss-
ing the backgrounds of the five artists
whose works will be featured.
Representing the Jewish communi-
ty will be the music of James Simon,
Leone Sinigaglia and Paul Ben-Haim.
Representing the Ukrainian composers
will be the music of Mykola Lysenko and
Vasyl Barvinsky.
“We want to celebrate the relation-
ship between Ukrainians and Jews,
” said
Soroka, who came to the United States
from Ukraine in 1998 and has provided
housing for her mother and two of her
sister’s children since the Russians invaded
the country of her birth.
“I’m a director of these musical evenings
at the museum, and the idea of the series is
to present multicultural events whether it’s
a recital or a lecture-recital to reflect on the
multicultural environment in the Detroit
area. We want to present music and culture
of different groups that live in Detroit.
”
The three instrumentalists in the pro-
gram met about seven years ago through
the Toccata Classics record label on which
the three record together in facilities main-
tained in Ann Arbor.
Phillip Silver chose the composers and
the music that are to be presented. He has
done extensive research in this field and
has learned about the situations of many
individuals confronting these difficult cir-
cumstances.
“I’m a concert pianist so I have a lot
of experience putting together pro-
grams,
” Silver said. “For the program at
the Ukrainian museum, I wanted to put
together what would illustrate their predic-
aments and our predicaments and create
upon the solidarity.
”
To begin, Silver describes James Simon
as a Berlin-born pianist, composer and
musicologist who was murdered in
Auschwitz and remembered for music
that is very likeable without being very
complex.
Leone Sinigaglia, Silver explained, was
an Italian composer and mountain climber
who studied with Antonin Dvorák. He
was an ethnomusicologist in terms of the
influential music from Italy, and his music
is known for being melodic and dramatic.
He died of a heart attack as he was arrest-
ed.
Paul Ben-Haim, who survived the
Holocaust and went to Palestine, founded
the Eastern-Mediterranean way of com-
posing in an attempt to combine Eastern
and Western musical cultures.
Mykola Lysenko, thought of as the father
figure of Ukrainian music, seemed very
appropriate to include, according to Silver.
Vasyl Barvinsky, whose music reflects
Ukrainian culture, had a lot of his music
destroyed by the Russians, and he spent
considerable time trying to reconstruct it.
Silver, who grew up in Brooklyn,
remembers a childhood of hearing his
relatives talking emotionally at night
when they thought he was asleep, and
many years later he found out they were
talking about family members killed in the
Holocaust.
Noreen Silver, who converted to
Judaism, has been described as an instru-
mentalist who shows depth and imagina-
tion in her playing. She directs the cham-
ber music initiatives at the college and
teaches cello and music theory.
With her husband, she has performed
in the United States, Europe and Israel.
Together, they present chamber music and
are known as the Silver Duo.
Although Soroka is not Jewish, she feels
close to the Jewish community because of
some of her husband’s relatives and having
teachers who were Jewish. She has planned
a reception after the musical program and
is inviting the audience to speak with the
performers.
“This topic is very close to my heart,
and I want to share it with other people,
”
Soroka said. “When people know what the
music is about, they listen differently, and
it helps them understand.
”
ARTS&LIFE
MUSIC
SUZANNE CHESSLER
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Concert will celebrate
the relationship between
Ukrainians and Jews.
Music
of
Resistance
Phillip
Silver
Noreen
Silver
Solomia
Soroka
MARCH 16 • 2023 | 49