Musicians felt the souls of their audience
newsday
BY AILEEN JACOBSON
STAFF WRITER
February 19, 200
The fluttering leaves that sounded like ghosts applauding may have been the most extraordinary of all the events experienced by a group of young Long Island musicians who visited Auschwitz and Terezin last summer.
“The air was so still when we started playing,” says Gabrielle Rozenberg, 17, a Syosset High School senior, speaking of a concert that the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra of New York performed at Auschwitz, Poland, in July. A Bach Chorale, a piece by Mendelssohn, Max Bruch’s “Kol Nidre” and part of John Williams’ “Theme From Schindler’s List” were on the memorial program. Orchestra executive director John McNeur told the players and a small audience of passersby that there would be no applause when they finished in this place where more than 1 million people were murdered during the Holocaust.
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