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<< Previous   of   Next >> (click to enlarge) Paul Schoenfield (click to enlarge) Morgan Smith (click to enlarge) Angela Niederloh (click to enlarge) Kurt Beattie   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Melanie Munk, Features Editor munk@heraldnet.com   Published: Friday, May 9, 2008 Pianist-turned-composer debuts new composition Herald Staff Paul Schoenfield was a pianist before turning composer. On Monday, he will sit at the keyboard to play the world premiere of his composition "Ghetto Songs," his second commission from Music of Remembrance. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall, 200 University St., Seattle. Tickets are $36 at the door or in advance by calling 206-365-7770 or online at www.musicofremembrance.org. Schoenfield's earlier work, "Camp Songs," was a 2003 Pulitzer Prize finalist. MOR is a Seattle chamber music organization dedicated to performing music from or about the Holocaust era. The way Music of Remembrance artistic director Mina Miller described it, Schoenfield's "Ghetto Songs" draws on the poetry of Mordecai Gebirtig, a carpenter and folk singer known throughout Poland as the "Yiddish troubadour." Deported to the Krakow Ghetto, he was shot to death at age 65, according to MOR press materials. In addition to Schoenfield, the program includes several Northwest vocalists and musicians. Seattle baritone Morgan Smith and Portland mezzo soprano Angela Niederloh will sing Schoenfield's work, while A Contemporary Theatre artistic director Kurt Beattie provides narration. Woodinville teen Marié Rossano, 2008 winner of MOR's David Tonkonogui Memorial Award, will begin the concert with Ernest Bloch's "Nigun." Seattle mezzo soprano Julie Mirel is the vocalist for the world premiere of an arrangement by U.S. composer David Stock, who has produced a chamber music version of Chava Alberstein's song "Mayn Shvester Chaya" for voice, clarinet and string quartet. Other guest vocalists are the Northwest Boychoir, led by Joseph Crnko, performing Yiddish choral music arranged by Viktor Ullmann, the composer of the opera "The Emperor of Atlantis." While imprisoned in the Nazi "model" concentration camp Terezín from 1942 to 1944, Ullmann produced more than 16 compositions. Sent to Auschwitz in October 1944, he was killed in the gas chambers there. Cellist performs: Finnish cello player Jussi Makkonen has been on the classical circuit since he was 16, playing all over the world and sought after by various orchestras. On Wednesday, Makkonen brings his cello to Bellingham. The Whatcom Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Music NOW! and the Bellingham Sister Cities Association are hosting a performance by Makkonen at 7:30 p.m. at Christ the Servant Lutheran Church, 2600 Lakeway Drive, Bellingham. Suggested donation is $10. Makkonen began playing the cello at 7 and was selected to study in the Sibelius Academy's program. In 1996 he started his university studies and eventually earned his master's degree in music in 2004. Besides teaching, Makkonen plays chamber music in a piano quartet called Focus and has played with pianists and orchestras around the world.

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