MURRY SIDLIN
“When words are no longer adequate, when our passion is greater than we are able to express in a usual manner, that’s when art begins. Some people go to the canvas and paint; some dance and others make music. But we all go beyond our normal means of communication; and this IS the common human experience for all people on this planet.”
Murry Sidlin
UPCOMING PERFORMANCES/EVENTS
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Time: 8:00 p.m.
St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague, Czech Republic
Prague Symphony Orchestra
Prague Philharmonic Choir
The Kühn Choir of Prague
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Thursday, May 8, 2014
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Popejoy Hall, The University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico
The University of New Mexico Concert Choir, University Chorus and the UNM Symphony Orchestra
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Coming Soon: Details on future performances in the Washington D.C. area and Berlin!
For further information on The Defiant Requiem Foundation, The Rafael Schächter Institute of the Arts and Humanities at Terezin or Murry Sidlin, please also see www.defiantrequiem.org
Thank you for visiting my site where you can find out more about the “Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezin” Concert Drama and the Illuminations Concerts.
I hope that you will take a few minutes to learn about “Defiant Requiem”, a project close to my heart. I am proud and humbled to be at the forefront of telling the story of these courageous Jewish prisoners in the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp during World War II who learned Verdi’s Requiem Mass by rote and then performed it 16 times as a statement of defiance and resistance, answering the worst of mankind with the best of mankind. I know you will find Defiant Requiem Story enlightening and inspiring.
If you are interested in bringing Defiant Requiem, the Concert Drama, to your area or presenting one of the many Illumination Concerts, please contact me at defiantrequiem.sidlin@gmail.com or msidlin@gmail.com
Welcome to my website
NEW: Please click the link below to see Murry Sidlin talk about his friend and mentor, Sergiu Comissiona.
Cecilia Burcescu, author of the new authorized biography of Sergiu Comissiona, “A Romanian Rhapsody”, interviewed Maestro Sidlin when he was in Vancouver for the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival where the documentary, “Defiant Requiem” was being presented. “What a pleasure it was to talk with her about the great conductor, Sergiu Comissiona. I hope you enjoy the interview.”
RECENT PERFORMANCES/EVENTS
Monday, April 29, 2013
Lincoln Center, Avery Fisher Hall at 7:30pm
New York, New York
REVIEW, New York Times, 5/1/2013:
“Doomed But Still Dedicated to Verdi”
Extreme deprivation, degradation and abuse are not easily evoked in a concert setting, with relatively comfortable musicians performing for well-fed and highly perfumed listeners. But the conductor Murry Sidlin made a remarkable attempt on Monday in his “Defiant Requiem,” a “concert-drama” presented at Avery Fisher Hall by the UJA-Federation of New York, with ticket sales and sponsorships to benefit Holocaust survivors....
...The most touching moments occurred when Mr. Sidlin dispensed with the orchestra at the beginning or end of a movement, turning the accompaniment over to Rita Sloan, playing a tinny-sounding upright piano, presumably à la Terezin. But more powerful still was the ending when, after the intrusion of a train whistle, a clarinetist segued into the melody of “Oseh Shalom,” a Hebrew prayer for peace....
Full Review: NY Times Review
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Tuesday, April 23 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD
REVIEW: Baltimore Sun, 4/24/2013
“Moving performance of 'Defiant Requiem' at Peabody Institute” 4/24/2013
If you don't have a ticket to tonight's repeat of "Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezin" at the Peabody Institute, try using all your powers of persuasion and influence to get one, or just consider sneaking in. It's an important event...
...On Tuesday night, Sidlin's bracing, deeply felt approach to the Requiem generated vivid singing by the Peabody-Hopkins Chorus and Peabody Singers, mostly impressive playing by the Peabody Symphony Orchestra. The famous "Dies Irae" passage proved truly shattering.
Full Review: Baltimore Sun Review
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For other articles and reviews see the “Reviews/Quotes” page at Sidlin Reviews/Quotes
or on the DefiantRequiem.org website
DefiantRequiem.org Press & Reviews
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May 31, 2012
DEFIANT REQUIEM: VERDI AT TEREZIN
Jerusalem, Israel with the Jerusalem Symphony and the Kühn Choir from Prague, Czech Republic. This concert was sponsored by The Israel Festival - 2012 and was incredible well-received.
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July 21, 2012
DEFIANT REQUIEM: VERDI AT TEREZIN
The Berkshire Choral Festival, 2012
Sheffield, Massachusetts
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October 11, 2012
DEFIANT REQUIEM: VERDI AT TEREZIN
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
Sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League of Atlanta, Georgia
MURRY SIDLIN TO RECEIVE THE SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER’S MEDAL OF VALOR
ON JUNE 11th, 2013
This year, at the National Tribute Dinner of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and its Museum of Tolerance (to be held on June 11th, 2013 at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills), Maestro Sidlin will receive the Center’s Medal of Valor for his “extraordinary efforts to keep alive the memory of Rafael Schächter”.... and his recreation of Schächter and his chorus’s performances of the Verdi Requiem (in defiance of their Nazi captors)...“will assure that Schächter’s memory lives on in perpetuity.”
Past recipients of the Center’s Medals of Honor of Valor include Miep Gies, who hid Anne Frank and her family; Senator George Mitchell, honored for his involvement in brokering peace in Northern Ireland; Congressman John Lewis, who walked side by side with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the frontline of America’s struggle for civil rights in the 1960’s. Also honored with this award were Lord George Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury; Sully Sullenberger; Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords; The Tuskegee Airmen; and Elisabeth Mann, Auschwitz survivor and longtime volunteer at the Museum of Tolerance.
Jim Gianopulos (CEO of Fox Studios) will be awarded the Center's highest honor, the Humanitarian Laureate Award as a highlight of the dinner.
The Chairmen of this year’s dinner will be SWC Trustees Jeffrey Katzenberg (CEO of DreamWorks Animation); Ron Meyer (President and COO, NBC Universal Entertainment); and Gerry Schwartz (Chairman of Onex). The audience will include leaders of the entertainment and film industry as well as the Jewish community of Los Angeles.
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