The music director of southwest Washington’s Vancouver Symphony Orchestra is also the principal guest conductor of Israel’s Raanana Symphonette. Maestro Salvador Brotons, now celebrating his 20th season in Vancouver, conducted in Raanana last week on Feb. 17 and 19, and returns there within the month, to lead three concerts onContinue Reading
1. Benaroya Hall holds 2,500 people. It’s an acoustic paradise, especially when it’s full. Welcoming guests is a major mitzvah, so think of your attendance as giving some visiting Israelis the warmest Seattle welcome. 2. The orchestra is celebrating an anniversary: 75 years since its creation in 1936. Twelve yearsContinue Reading
On his way to becoming a perennial All-Star in the mid-1950s, Cleveland Indians clean-up hitter Al Rosen received more than his share of barbs from opposing dugouts and the stands. All these years later, the slugging Jewish third baseman recalls how he distinguished casual insults from malicious slurs. “There’s aContinue Reading
“I’ll change that!” Cantor David Serkin-Poole calls out, pointing to Isaac Azose during rehearsal on Feb. 2, then getting right back to the music. Azose nods an affirmation. “That” which Serkin-Poole is referring to is the accidental mention of God’s name in a passage of liturgical music he’s been singing,Continue Reading
Editor’s Note: This is the second in a multi-part series honoring Seattle Symphony Music Director Gerard Schwarz’s final season. Seattle Symphony has already released its schedule of concerts for next season, starting in September of 2011, when its new music director, Ludovic Morlot, takes over. But right now, at theContinue Reading
Her own journey of spirit By Ann Coppel Debbie believed that singing was life giving. She loved people singing with her, participating. Singing is how I first met Debbie in the early 1970s — she was at a NoFTY summer conclave in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin as our songleader. We learned theContinue Reading
First the bad news: Book Lust is finished. Now the good news: Nancy Pearl, the creator of the series of books that helps hungry readers find the right book at the right time and Library Journal’s 2011 librarian of the year, isn’t giving up her personal quest to promote literacyContinue Reading
“Even after 70 years, I still remember how to make my own developer,” says Faye Schulman. During the three years she lived in the woods, fighting the Nazis with a band of Soviet partisans, Schulman documented her experiences, developing negatives under blankets at night and burying her camera and tripodContinue Reading
The end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will happen as a result of the everyday efforts of ordinary people, not the proclamations of politicians, filmmakers Ronit Avni and Julia Bacha are convinced. Encounter Point, their powerhouse 2006 documentary, focused on Jews and Arabs who’d lost loved ones to violence yet wereContinue Reading
Editor’s Note: This is the first in a multi-part series that will run throughout the next several months on the thoughts behind Seattle Symphony director Gerard Schwarz’s final season. “When you do what you do for the right reasons, it usually works. Not always. But usually.” Seattle Symphony music directorContinue Reading
Without doubt, Andy Statman is the creator of a uniquely American fusion music — call it jazz, spiritual, multicultural, or whatever. For the first time since 1999, Statman performs in Seattle on Nov. 30 to benefit Chabad at the University of Washington. The show anchors a three-city Pacific Northwest tourContinue Reading
We’ve been getting some pretty good music in the mail these days, so we’ve given a few a listen so you can post them on the tunes section of your Hanukkah list. ‘Til Chelm Freezes Over What The Chelm What The Chelm, Inc. What The Chelm, the nine-member klezmer bandContinue Reading
November is a cruel month. The weather starts to turn from the charming autumn to downright chilly. All those gorgeous red and gold leaves on the trees have turned brown and become a nuisance to be raked up. And like the second quarter of a marathon, the school year isContinue Reading
Eli Rosenblatt is a unique musical fixture in Seattle — a feat that’s a direct result of the nature of Rosenblatt’s music, which is poignantly and accurately described on his MySpace page as “eclectic.” Indeed, Rosenblatt’s new self-titled album kicks off with consecutive songs in Hebrew, English, then Spanish. All,Continue Reading
By Arthur Wolak, Special to JTNewsContinue Reading
It took seven years for Yann Martel to write his most recent book, Beatrice and Virgil: A Novel (Spiegel & Grau, 2010). The story began as a two-act play that served as an allegory to the Holocaust, from which he took fragments to use in his novel. It eventually evolvedContinue Reading
By Eric Nusbaum, Assistant Editor, JTNewsContinue Reading
Mark Richard Schuster did not set out to become an author. But after the Seattle entrepreneur completed development on Mosler Lofts, the Belltown condo project that has become his signature achievement, he felt he had a story worth telling. Schuster’s book, Lofty Pursuits: Repairing the World One Building at aContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews CorrespondentContinue Reading
I was delighted to receive a review copy of Scott Simon’s Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other: In Praise of Adoption (Random House, cloth, $22), since I have already been intrigued by his radio essays on the subject. Simon is the host of NPR’s “Weekend Edition Saturday,” and heContinue Reading
