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

