Spring E-Notes from Zamir Chorale of Boston

Click here to see a video of Gil Adema's upbeat "Ashira Lididai."

Board co-chair Alan Teperow introduced the evening's honoree, Joyce "Nightingale" Bohnen, a Zamir alumna and former board chair, who joined Zamir for a solo verse of Paul Ben-Haim's sweet arrangement of the Sephardic lullaby "Hitrag'ut." American-born David Burger's stirring prayer for Israel's well-being, "Tefillah," rounded out the first half.

The Premiere

"The air above Jerusalem is filled with dreams." And the air in Sanders Theatre was filled with electricity after intermission, when Jacobson raised his baton for Like Wildflowers, Suddenly, by Cantors Charles Osborne and Aryeh Finklestein. The new oratorio in five movements Josh Jacobson conducts rehearsal

was inspired by Israeli poet Yehudah Amichai's "Wild Peace" and was completed only recently. "In the winter, we were waiting for the score," said Jacobson. "I can't tell you the relief I felt when the music finally began to arrive in March. Not merely relief, but such excitement when we heard how beautiful it was."

Drawing on sources from the Bible, the Talmud, the

siddur, and contemporary poetry, Like Wildflowers reveals three stages of Jewish history--biblical, the Diaspora, and the modern State of Israel. Osborne served as narrator and baritone soloist, joined by mezzo-soprano Johanna Bronk, and a chamber orchestra.

A hushed moment followed the final chord, then the audience rose to its feet and the applause continued Circle of Zamir women singing

through several curtain calls. "The evening surpassed my expectations," said Ronda Jacobson, chair of the concert committee. "And honoring Joyce Bohnen, a dear friend and inspiration, was truly meaningful."

Of conducting the stellar chamber orchestra, made up of Boston's finest freelance musicians and contracted by orchestra manager and board member Bruce Creditor, Josh Jacobson conducts rehearsal

Joshua Jacobson said, "I've never driven a Rolls Royce, but I imagine that's what it must be like: so smooth, responding perfectly to my touch, and with all the parts working in perfect harmony.

"Cantor Osborne has shown us once again that he knows how to orchestrate as well as he knows how to create vocal music that singers love to sing," Jacobson Josh Jacobson conducts rehearsal

continued. "And beyond that, he uncovered the inner beauty in Cantor Finklestein's libretto to create an instant classic--a 40-minute oratorio that holds together beautifully, and captures the listener's attention from the first note to the last fermata. It's truly stunning. What a labor of love!"

(Photos by Mickey Goldin)

Notes from the Composer and Librettist

The event's magic is perhaps best expressed in composer Osborne's own words: "As a product of the 1960s, I remember something called a 'happening,' where the delineations between art and music, between artist and audience, were blurred, and people found themselves immersed in an experience that was both cathartic and different in ways impossible to have predicted beforehand. I found the whole Wild Peace concert experience to be reminiscent of this," Osborne wrote in an email.

"If a history of this concert is ever written, I think it should say that the people responsible for the experience--the creative artists, performers, and audience--needed this concert in the same way the field of Amichai's poem needs the wild peace. It was not only the Zamir Chorale of Boston at its best, it was the Zamir Chorale of Boston at its most essential: Israel and music, and all of the power these two elements contain. It transcended the formality of the concert hall and gained the immediacy of the happening, and I am grateful to have been a part of it."