A debut of music written in Nazi concentration camps and a collection of personal photographs brought as keepsakes by Jewish deportees to those camps are part of a program at Emory University this month titled “Testaments of the Heart,” a celebration of the resilience of the human spirit.
Noted author and Holocaust scholar Ann Weiss will present a campus-wide exhibition of photographs from her internationally acclaimed book, “The Last Album: Eyes from the Ashes of Auschwitz-Birkenau,” through Nov. 12.
Titled “Testaments of the Heart: Photographs from the Ashes of Auschwitz-Birkenau,” the selection of more than 100 photographs from “The Last Album” will be shown in five locations at Emory–the Visual Arts Gallery, Center for Ethics, School of Medicine, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, and Cannon Chapel.
A concert of music written in Nazi camps, compiled by renowned musician, composer and musicologist Francesco Lotoro, will have its international debut at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 28 at Emory’s Schwartz Center for Performing Arts. Scribbled in notebooks, diaries and even on pieces of lavatory paper, the collection provides a remarkable history of the music played and sung by the victims of the Holocaust.
Musicians from the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Georgia State University Orchestra and Emory’s Department of Music will come together to perform a selection of diverse musical pieces, from cabaret to classical, interspersed with visual imagery from Ann Weiss’ book, “The Last Album,” accompanied by stories and commentary from Weiss. Lotoro also will be present to provide a historical context and to perform a composition written for the organ.
The concert, presented in partnership with Mythic Imagination Institute, will be held at the Emerson Concert Hall of the Schwartz Center, 1700 North Decatur Rd. Free tickets (limit 4) may be obtained in person or by calling the Arts at Emory Box Office at 404.727.5050. The box office is open Monday-Friday 10 a.m.-6 p.m. For more directions, parking and updates, visit http://www.arts.emory.edu