(Posted November 4, 2013)

HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- The Juniata College Concert Choir and combined choirs from 22 local Jewish congregations will perform "Voices of the Holocaust" at Juniata College, at 7:30 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 10, in The Music Center at Strathmore in Bethesda, Md.

Tickets for the event are $36 and $54 and are available online at www.strathmore.org. The combined choirs will be conducted by Jason Love, a cellist and conductor from Howard County, Maryland.

At 6:30 p.m. there will be a pre-concert discussion with Sheridan Seyfried, a professor of music at the Curtis Institute of Music, in Philadelphia, Pa.
"Voices of the Holocaust" uses music and songs written during the Holocaust in Jewish ghettoes and in concentration camps. Composer Seyfried arranged 22 songs as a dramatic, five-part cantata that seeks to illuminate the human struggle for dignity and address the tragic issues raised by the Holocaust.

Seyfried wrote the 80-minute work as a commission in 2004 for the State College Choral Society, a 140-member vocal ensemble that has performed this piece throughout the world.

The performances in Bethesda commemorate not only the Holocaust, but also the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Nov. 9, 1938 pogrom against Germany's Jewish population. On that "night of broken glass," Nazi storm troopers and German citizens ransacked Jewish synagogues, homes and businesses.

The Juniata Concert Choir is a 50-person choir that tours every spring semester, focusing its program on historical sacred music. Juniata choirs have performed at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., and St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. The choir also tours internationally almost every year. Past tours have taken the ensemble to Guatemala, China, Mexico, and Brazil.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.