The Music of Mieczyslaw Weinberg: Performance and Panel Discussion

DACAMERA of Houston, together with Rice University’s Boniuk Institute for Religious Tolerance and Holocaust Museum Houston, presents The Music of Mieczyslaw Weinberg, a free performance by pianist and DACAMERA Artistic Director Sarah Rothenberg with DACAMERA Young Artists on Thursday, Nov. 14 at 6:30 p.m., at Holocaust Museum Houston. (Photo: Brandon Bell)

DACAMERA of Houston, together with Rice University’s Boniuk Institute for Religious Tolerance and Holocaust Museum Houston, presents The Music of Mieczyslaw Weinberg, a free performance by pianist and DACAMERA Artistic Director Sarah Rothenberg with DACAMERA Young Artists on Thursday, Nov. 14 at 6:30 p.m., at Holocaust Museum Houston. The performance will be preceded by a panel discussion featuring Rothenberg in discussion with Patrick Summers (Houston Grand Opera music director) and Jeremy Eichler (critic, essayist and author of the forthcoming book Time’s Echo: War, Modern Music and the Soundscapes of Memory). The performance and panel discussion are part of the Boniuk Institute’s ongoing efforts to promote religious tolerance and literacy.

For the concert, Rothenberg, piano, along with DACAMERA Young Artists Mary Grace Johnson, violin; Tinca Belinschi, violin; Pablo Muñoz Salido, viola; and Christoph Wagner, cello, will perform Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 18. Born and raised in Warsaw, Weinberg exhibited unusual musical talent from a young age, but his studies at the Warsaw Conservatory were interrupted in 1939 with the rise of the Nazis. He fled east to Minsk, and again to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where he established ties to the artist community that brought recognition to the young composer’s first symphony. 

While Weinberg was held in the highest regard by his contemporaries, the works of this brilliant and prolific musician were, until recently, unknown outside of Russia. He has gained a posthumous reputation as “one of the most interesting composers of the 20th century” (violinist Gidon Kremer). Since Houston Grand Opera’s revival of Weinberg’s opera, The Passenger, the composer’s reputation has continued to grow. The Piano Quintet is a dark and tragic composition that, in five movements, seems to encapsulate the Polish-Russian composer’s life story. Symphonic in scale and dramatic scope, this piece is widely regarded as one of the greatest works of this form of the 20th century.

This project is co-presented by Rice University’s Boniuk Institue for Religious Tolerance, DACAMERA and Holocaust Museum Houston. Major support is provided by The Boniuk Institute and the Association for Jewish Studies Arts and Culture Community Grant. Admission is free, but registration is required. Register online here.