Thursday, 10 November 2022
1:30-2:30 p.m. EST
ECOSOC Chamber, United Nations Headquarters, New York
To watch the event live or on-demand please visit UN WebTV, YouTube or Twitter
To engage in the online Q&A, please submit your questions and comments here
What is the relationship of music to the Holocaust – what meaning did music come to hold for the victims of the Nazis, and what place does it have in adding to our understanding of the history of the Holocaust? What place does it have in Holocaust commemoration, memory and education? Why is it important to perform pieces composed during the Holocaust, or by composers who did not survive the Holocaust? How do contemporary musicians respond to the history of the Holocaust? Join the conversation with the panel comprising historian Jay Grymes, Composer and conductor, Victoria Bond, Noreen Green and violinist Renée Jolles.
Speakers
James A. Grymes
Dr. Grymes is a musicologist, author and Professor of Musicology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is the author of Violins of Hope: Instruments of Hope and Liberation in Mankind’s Darkest Hour (Harper Perennial, 2014), which tells the remarkable stories of violins played by Jewish musicians during the Holocaust, and of the Israeli violinmaker dedicated to bringing these instruments back to life. Dr. Grymes has addressed audiences at significant public venues including the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. He has been featured in interviews by the New York Times, ABC News, and CNN, and has written essays for the Huffington Post and Opus.
Noreen Green
Dr. Green has served as guest lecturer and conductor in the United States, Israel, South Africa, Australia, Canada and the Caribbean. She is the Artistic Director and Conductor of the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony (LAJS), which she founded in 1994. She also created and leads an innovative outreach education programme, A Patchwork of Cultures: Exploring the Sephardic-Latino Connection, that has served more than a thousand elementary school students annually since 2006. Dr. Green holds a Master of Music degree from California State University, Northridge, and a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Southern California. In 2022, she was inducted into the prestigious Marquis Who’s Who Biographical Registry, joining other listees such as Ta-Nehisi Coates, Dr. Anthony Fauci and Kamala Harris.
Victoria Bond
Ms. Bond is a composer and conductor. Ms. Bond was the first woman awarded a doctorate in orchestral conducting from the Juilliard School, New York. She served as Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductor with the Pittsburgh Symphony and has guest conducted throughout the United States, Europe, South America and China. Ms. Bond produces the annual Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival in New York and is a frequent lecturer for the Metropolitan Opera Guild. Her commissions include the American Ballet Theater, Pennsylvania Ballet, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Houston and Shanghai Symphony Orchestras. Ms. Bond’s compositions have been performed by the Dallas Symphony, New York City Opera, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Anchorage Opera, Irish National Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony and members of the New York Philharmonic .
Renée Jolles
Ms. Jolles is a violinist with an eclectic career as soloist and chamber artist, who has performed in major concert halls and festivals throughout Europe, Asia, North and South Americas. She is a member of the Jolles Duo, Continuum, Intimate Voices, the Bedford Chamber Players, the New York Chamber Ensemble, and a concertmaster of the Grammy Award-winning Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Jolles is a Professor of Violin at the Eastman School of Music, where she inaugurated the annual Holocaust Remembrance Concert series in 2014. Prior to that, she was on the faculty of the Juilliard School, Pre-College Division, the Mannes School of Music, Preparatory Division, and the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College. Ms. Jolles earned her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the Juilliard School.