Buchenwald Commemoration CD

[JeffSchan <JeffSchan...>]

Below is an announcement for my recently-released CD.  Of particular interest
to people on this newsgroup will be my use of "Shlof In Der Ruikeit," a
Yiddish lullaby from Vilna, as the basis of one of the movements.  The store
release date is still about 2 weeks away, but I thought I would post this in
the middle of a discussion on music and the Holocaust.  The CD can be ordered
directly from the record company at this time.

     Jeffrey Schanzer
     No More In Thrall
     Sirius String Quartet with Kevin Norton, percussion
     CRI CD 748
     
     This work commemorates the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the
Nazi
     concentration camp at Buchenwald, where the composer's father was a
prisoner. 
     Buchenwald was unique in that it was liberated by the prisoners
themselves,
     saving thousands of lives in doing so.
     
     Each movement of this work is based on a folk or traditional melody and
reflects
     the ethnic and political diversity of the camp.  The first movement,
"Red Army
     Song," commemorates the Red Army prisoners, who were singled out for
     barbaric treatment usually reserved only for Jews.  The second movement,
"Shlof
     in der Ruikeit (Sleep in Peace)" is taken from a Yiddish lullaby from
Vilna,
     which also had a heroic history of armed resistance to the Nazis.
 During the
     liquidation of the camp, the Jewish prisoners were the first sent out on
death
     marches.  The third movement, "Which Side Are You On?," based on the
     American union song, commemorates the lives of five civil rights and
union
     activists murdered by the American Nazis and Ku Klux Klan in Greensboro,
     North Carolina in 1979.  The fourth movement, "Traurige Cerheni (Sad
Star)," is
     taken from a Roma (Gypsy) melody sung in the concentration camps.  The
Roma
     and Cinti peoples were considered "inferior" races which the Nazis
wished to
     exterminate.  The final movement, "The Internationale," is based on the
     international socialist anthem.  The Internationale was sung by the over
20,000
     survivors on the day after liberation.
     
     The CD is on the Composers Recordings Inc. (CRI) label (CRI CD 748).
 For
     more information, visit CRI's web site: www.composersrecordings.com.