October 24, 2006

Michael O’Neal Singers’ Holocaust Cantata

Michael O’Neal Singers’ Holocaust Cantata
By Pierre Ruhe | Tuesday, October 24, 2006, 08:55 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

CONCERT REVIEW. Donald McCullough’s “Holocaust Cantata.” Monday at The Temple in Midtown.www.mosingers.com.

In creating a memorial for the dead, an artist’s first thought is typically for the living — to comfort the spirit, to create a “memory space,” to inspire future heroics (as after a victorious battle) or, sometimes, to provoke outrage at the injustice of the deaths.

The Michael O’Neal Singers, a superb professional choir based in Roswell, ventured into Midtown’s The Temple synagogue Monday night to perform Donald McCullough’s “Holocaust Cantata: Songs from the Camps.”

A choirmaster and composer based in Washington, DC, McCullough complied fragments of text and music from concentration camps in Poland which are collected at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Originally tilted “In the Shadow of the Holocaust,” the 45-minute work had its premiere in Washington in 1998 and has since been performed around the country.

As conductor O’Neal told Monday’s audience before the music started, the composer’s aim was “to turn statistics into people.”

Thus McCullough had the Polish words fashioned into singably poetic English lyrics (credited to Denny Clark) and arranged the old melodies and words into six sung sections, creating its own emotional arc.

The musical numbers were interspersed by oral histories from the prisoners, read by members of the choir. Telling of incomprehensible sadism, ritualized insanity and unchecked evil, these short anecdotes accounted for much of the work’s bitter, knife-sharp sadness.

Throughout the cantata, a lone cello plays a prominent role: weeping, protesting, keeping vigil, offering almost a running commentary on the texts. Atlanta Symphony cellist Daniel Laufer brought deep understanding to the music and, in vibrato and tone, sang with his cello like a wise old folk singer — someone who needed to be listened to. Along with O’Neal’s beautifully nuanced and balanced choir, he was the star of the evening.

Baritone Ryan Taylor (best known as the founder of the Southeastern Festival of Song) powerfully delivered “The Train,” an engaging farewell set as almost a café love song. Sopranos Deborah L. Numark (cantor of The Temple) and Patty Dontje were joined by the choir for “Song of Days Now Gone,” which closed the cantata.

It was immediately followed by “We Remember Them,” also by McCullough, a resolute and calming coda. Before we heard music of the horrors, the choir sang choruses from Mendelssohn’s “Elijah” and Laufer and pianist Tom Alderman offered an extrememly moving account of Dvorak’s “Silent Woods.”

But everything was heard in the context of the “Holocaust Cantata.” Although the best memorials take on a double life — in commemoration and also as stand-along works of art — in this case perhaps it’s enough to simply put us there in the camps, thinking about music that was played or hummed and poetry that was recited.

READ THIS REVIEW ONLINE AT http://www.accessatlanta.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/accessatlanta/reviews/entries/2006/10/24/michael_oneal_s.html