Polyphony recognizes International Holocaust Remembrance Day through song

In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Polyphony: Voices of New Mexico will be performing “In Remembrance.”

International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is observed on Jan. 27, commemorates the victims of the Holocaust, the genocide of millions of Jewish people and minority groups by Nazi Germany. The date coincides with the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

“The music is originally composed by incarcerated folks from the Holocaust camps,” Maxine Thévenot, Polyphony artistic director, said. “Musicians that were held in the camps had just as much a story to tell through their music as those who were not musicians and who are poets or who were storytellers.”

“In Remembrance” includes “Prayer” by Ernest Bloch, “Holocaust Cantata” by Donald McCullough, Cello Suite No. 1 in G major by Johann Sebastian Bach and “Even When He is Silent” by Kim André Arensen. Polyphony will perform “In Remembrance” on Saturday, Jan. 31, and Sunday, Feb. 1.

Thévenot said “Prayer” is a reflective, intense and very expressive piece that should hopefully prepare people for what comes in the “Holocaust Cantata,” a combination of music and stories.

“Donald McCullough did a fabulous job of collating and putting together not only actual written stories of incarcerated inmates in the Holocaust concentration camps,” Thévenot said, “but also taking musical annotations that have been gathered over the course of the past 80 years, and putting those together to form this wonderful cantata.”

She said adding music from the camps, along with the prisoners’ stories, makes for a deeply impactful, emotionally woven-together piece.

“I think that the audience, if you’re open and receptive to it, you will experience the full gamut of emotions,” Thévenot said.

The material can be hard to perform.

“I will say that in our experience, it’s sometimes very hard not to cry and sing at the same time,” Thévenot said.

She said it is not all sad stories and some are funny, as the prisoners tried to keep their sense of humor and tell stories in a humorous way.

Thévenot said she found that younger generations are not as aware of what happened in the concentration camps, and she hopes audience members will leave the concert changed and educated.

“It’s important to tell the stories of incarcerated inmates from the Holocaust, in part, so that if we don’t know our history, then we won’t know when it’s potentially starting to repeat itself,” Thévenot said.

“And I think in this day and age, I don’t think I’m wrong in saying that antisemitism is on the rise,” Thévenot said, “and so it’s all the more important to share these stories so that we don’t go down that same road again.”

Elizabeth Secor is an arts fellow from the New Mexico Local News Fellowship program. You can reach her at esecor@abqjournal.com.