For one night only, Vanderbilt University’s Ingram Hall will be alive with music created in the ghettos of Europe and the Nazi concentration camps. We Are Here: Songs from the Holocaust is being presented on January 27th in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day and will feature performances of music once believed to have been lost forever.
The concert was conceived and created by Chicago based musician and producer Ira Antelis who was inspired by the late Elie Wiesel to continue giving voice to those lost during the Holocaust. “When I was growing up Elie Wiesel was the fixture of anything related to the Holocaust. And when he died the first question that entered my mind was, ‘Who becomes the voice for all of us to talk about the Holocaust?’”
As Antelis read more about Wiesel, he discovered an article that described Wiesel’s love for music and referenced a forward he’d written for a book called We are Here about the music created in the ghettos and camps. A lifelong composer, musician, and producer who works in a multitude of genres, Antelis was surprised to learn of this music. He tracked down the book and began dreaming up ideas for a concert.
Antelis connected with a friend, David Mendelson, who is also from Chicago and a Vanderbilt alum. What came next was a collaboration between two good friends to bring the concert to life. Mendelson says the two formed a small organization to engage with Temple Sholom, the largest Reform congregation in Chicago, the Illinois Holocaust Educational Center, and a couple of other Jewish organizations. The concert was scheduled to be performed at Temple Sholom, but the Covid19 pandemic forced its cancellation.
Antelis did not give up his dream of eventually producing the music. After about a year and a half when Covid started to die down, Mendelson called Antelis to begin planning again. Antelis says, “I was researching, and I found another article about a group of songbooks called The 14 Shoah Songooks and I thought, ‘Now I know what I want to do. I want to find those songbooks and do a song form each songbook in memory of the writers and tell the story of the songs.’”
Mendelson says, “We got everyone back together and put the concert on. And we had no idea how many people we were going to get, and we ended up filling 1,000 seats.” And it was a mere two days later when Antelis called Mendelson back with yet another idea. “He says, ‘David, I got two words for you: Carnegie Hall,’” says Mendelson. So, off the two went to plan for a Carnegie Hall concert. The one night only performance sold out with 2500 people.
Not long after that momentous concert, Mendelson found himself in Nashville for a speaking engagement, while also visiting Vanderbilt with his daughter. During that visit, Mendelson remembered the early days of Vanderbilt’s Holocaust Lecture Series and thought it would be a good fit. He called Antelis and pitched the idea of doing the concert as part of the series.
Eventually Mendelson connected with Darren Reisberg, senior counsellor to the Chancellor at Vanderbilt. Both of them thought the concert would be a natural fit for the Dialogue Vanderbilt program. Reisberg says, “The University is honored to host the tremendously powerful and moving We Are Here Concert on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and ever grateful to alumnus David Mendelson for bringing this special opportunity our way.”
The concert format includes performances by local musicians which in Nashville means students from Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music will share the stage with professional recording artists, some of whom are award winners. Local community members will introduce each piece, as well. Linda Kartoz Doochin will be representing the Jewish community. She says she is happy to participate in such a unique program. “I’m delighted this program will be coming to Nashville. It is a sacred commemoration of history, bringing to life the music of those lost in the Holocaust. It’s basically a theme of love, loss, and hope.”
The emcee of the program is Rabbi Charles Savenor who was the rabbi at Congregation Anshei Emet in Chicago two decades ago, and Antelis was a congregant. The two had not been in touch but bumped into each other on the streets of New York where Savenor currently lives. “Ira is really a visionary and has a huge heart.” When Antelis asked him to participate in the concert, Savenor did not hesitate to say “yes.” “Our contribution to memory would be spotlighting what people were thinking in real time as they went through the worst possible experience imaginable.”
Savenor articulates what all the participants agree is the overarching goal of the concert: to build community. “I thought originally, we would be holding the concert in a synagogue. When we were working on the New York concert Ira called to tell me we were doing it at Carnegie Hall. He said, ‘These people’s music deserves to be played on the world’s most prestigious stage.’” He adds that by not using places of worship, the concert venue becomes a neutral communal space. “This wasn’t just about the Jewish community. It was also about the human community.”
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In the wake of October 7th, Savenor says there were some specific concerns. In fact he says last year’s concert in Chicago fell on the 30th day of the shloshim mourning period after October 7th. “We were concerned about protests. We were concerned about turning the concert into a statement about what was going on in the world.” But he said the concert had almost a cathartic effect for the Jewish community. “We’re committed to not making this concert into a statement about what’s happening today in this war. But we do believe that the concert does talk about the resilience and hopefulness of the Jewish people that any dark moment will be followed by something better.”
Despite all that, Savenor says there were some musicians who were uncomfortable performing in last year’s concert. “They thought their presence at a Jewish event would send a statement that they didn’t feel they could make.” Nevertheless, there is a diverse group of presenters and performers, including someone from the Islamic community. “That’s the type of world we envision,” he says, “I think the type of hopefulness that comes out of the music itself is that a healthy world is going to be when we can all stand on the stage together and remember and build something better.”
Promotion for the concert is in partnership with The Jewish Federation of Greater Nashville and will serve as the Federation’s annual Holocaust Day Remembrance event. Deborah Oleshansky, director of the Jewish Community Relations Committee says, “We are pleased to have this opportunity to partner with Vanderbilt in promoting this event in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, and to have one of our community members participate.”
The concert is scheduled for January 27th at Vanderbilt University’s Ingram Hall, at 7:00pm. To register visit www.boxoffice.vanderbilt.edu.