What
People are Saying About the Holocaust Cantata
What
the music directors are saying …
“What a fine and moving composition this is—the students absolutely loved singing the piece and the audience was moved to tears. It’s one of those pieces that reaches places in the soul where things often remain untouched.”
Dennis K. Cox, D.M.A.
Director of Choral Music, University of Maine
Orono, Maine
“The conception of this cantata is so strikingly original and the music works so perfectly with the texts, both read and sung. Our audience sat in stunned silence at the end, which seemed the only right response.”
Rodney A. Wynkoop, Ph. D.
Director of Choral Music, Duke University
Durham, North Carolina
“The students have completed two successful performances of the Cantata. It was so well received that two temples in surrounding towns are requesting encore performances! We also did an assembly here at Cheshire High School for nearly 600 students, faculty and administrators. We have all grown so much from our experiences with this piece.”
Beth Rosenblatt
Director of Choral Music, Cheshire High School
Cheshire, Connecticut
“We were honored to present such a moving choral work. It was an outstanding educational experience for our students.”
Patrick Castro
Director of Choral Music, Snohomish High School
Snohomish, Washington
“Each year our school district hosts a Masterworks Concert in late January or early February consisting of 11th and 12th grade students from all four high schools in the district. In past years we have performed such works as Haydn Lord Nelson Mass, Mozart Mass in C, Bernstein Chichester Psalms, Rutter Requiem and Rutter Gloria. Next year we are planning to feature Donald McCullough’s Holocaust Cantata.”
Dwayne E. Dunn, Ph.D.
Director of Choral Activities, Olathe East High School
Olathe, Kansas
“I cannot tell you how much my Chorale has loved singing Holocaust Cantata.”
Carolyn Eynon
Artistic Director, Arizona Arts Chorale
Scottsdale, Arizona
“It was an amazing experience for me and for my choir. Our audience was stunned to silence.”
Gregory Ruffer
Music Director, Orlando Chorale
Orlando, Florida
What the audience is saying …
“I have never experienced a musical performance that touched me as deeply and powerfully as last night’s performance of Holocaust Cantata at the Library of Congress…. This composition doesn’t exploit the emotional aspect of the subject matter as it could. Rather, by its clarity of purpose, balance—even restraint—it offers a glimpse into the daily horrors that thousands of individuals faced while also demonstrating how they found comfort in secretly expressing themselves through the power of words and music.”
Sherry Schiller, Ph.D.
Alexandria, Virginia
“Holocaust Cantata was, beyond any doubt, one of the most heart-wrenching and touching musical works I have ever heard. I was absolutely riveted to my seat from the first note to the last, as were all those around me.”
Fran Blendermann
Silver Spring, Maryland
“I want to thank Richard Coffee and CONCORA for an unforgettable and important presentation. This program forces us to confront our past and commit ourselves to a better future.”
Sarah Hager Johnston
Hartford, Connecticut
“This afternoon’s CONCORA concert at Center Church was the most powerful and memorable of any concert I have ever heard anywhere. I am not easily moved to a moistening of the eye, but several times this afternoon I had to reach for a Kleenex. Thank you. Not for moving me to tears, but for bringing home to me the horror and the pathos of the Holocaust.”
Robert Howard
Hartford, Connecticut
“Each movement was my favorite until I heard the next one. The work is such a rich tapestry of textures, colors, intensities, and patterns, all woven together in a way that makes it impossible to imagine them in any other form.”
Kathleen Franz
Chesapeake, Virginia
“…the Cantata is in a league by itself. We want to thank you for even thinking of creating a work like this and for piecing it together with such skill and inspiration. It is hard to express how moved we were; tears well up just thinking about it. We are Jewish, but it didn’t matter what people were—they all seemed equally moved.”
Kitty and Walt Sherwin
Bethesda, Maryland
“The concert last night was magnificent in every detail! I took three students with me who sat mesmerized throughout the concert. The Cantata is, indeed, a work of art, and I hope it will enjoy many more performances, because it really pulls listeners in and takes them on an important journey.”
Mary-Hannah Klontz
Public school music teacher, Arlington, Virginia
“It is seldom that I have been as deeply moved by anything as I was by the Washington Singers’ performance of Holocaust Cantata.”
Betty Wildman
Bethesda, Maryland
“Holocaust Cantata is a very powerful piece that successfully puts a human face on a horrible episode of modern history without becoming maudlin. Thank you for this important creation—I so hope it will be done over and over throughout the country.”
Debbi Iwig
Bethesda, Maryland
“It was the most moving musical experience I have ever had.”
Hugh A. McGaughy
St. Louis, Missouri
“It was a powerful, emotional experience. From the first notes that were played, I was pulled in. The artistry and skill of every person involved immediately freed me from just listening to notes and words and I was taken to a place where only music can take you.”
Kerry Arnold
Centreville, Virginia
“We were overwhelmed! What an incredible piece of music!
Edith and George Lowy
Silver Spring, Maryland
What the performers are saying …
“Performing music that Holocaust victims were only able to whisper in their hearts has been a great honor. The very least we can do is remember, and perhaps, in this way, we can do our part to make sure that history never again repeats itself.”
Kimberly Barrante, HS Senior (Soprano)
Cheshire High School
Cheshire, Connecticut
“The Cantata is not a ‘downer.’ The message is that the human spirit can be kept alive by artistic expression—that music can make a living hell at least bearable…. And as one of the few Jews in the choir, I also find that one of the Cantata’s most uplifting values is to see folks who have had little or no relationship with the goings-on during the Holocaust gaining new insights.”
Ray Litt, Baritone and Choir President
Rackham Symphony Choir
Detroit, Michigan
“Even though I’m not Jewish, I have done a lot of work with Israelis and grew up in a town with a number of Holocaust survivors. I found Holocaust Cantata an incredibly powerful work; it took all my concentration not to “lose it” during some of the readings. The music manages to be both understated and overwhelming at the same time. It was a privilege to participate in the world premiere.”
Tim Hoyt, Baritone
The Washington Singers
Washington, DC
“Donald McCullough’s Holocaust Cantata will be performed in Wooster and Kidron, Ohio on November 8 and 9 by the Cantate Singers. I was asked to play the cello for these events….I wanted to let you know that I really feel moved every time I practice the Cantata.”
Terry W. Ling, Cellist
Wooster, Ohio
What the music critics are saying …
“Perhaps the prospect of such a somber subject coupled with the thought of venturing out on a chilly late winter night kept some people home—as evidenced by many more empty seats than usually found at a Festival Singers’ concert. However, those who braved their emotional and meteorological concerns were richly rewarded from the program’s first note to the last.”
Bill Blankenship
The Capita-Journal (on the event of Washburn University’s Topeka Festival Singers’ performance of Holocaust Cantata),
Topeka, Kansas
“Voices from the past filled the Kennedy Center on Tuesday night—not muted voices, but vibrant, engaging ones, deeply involved with life although most of the people represented are long dead. It was the world premiere of Holocaust Cantata, a cycle of songs and spoken prose written by prisoners in Nazi concentration camps selected and arranged by Donald McCullough from material archived at the Holocaust Museum…. The people in the camps were vividly evoked in an experience that should linger long in the audience’s memory and should be regularly revived, perhaps in an annual concert at the Holocaust Museum.”
Joseph McClellan, Music Critic
The Washington Post
Washington, DC
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