Back to Press ReleasesDefiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín
Saturday, February 23
at Fisher Auditorium, Indiana PA
Complete live performance of Verdi's Requiem as performed in the Terezín Concentration Camp, interspersed with historic film, testimony from survivors and narration tells the moving story of courageous performances by the prisoners of a WWII concentration camp
Praised by The New York Times as "Poignant...a monument to the courage of one man to foster hope among prisoners with little other solace," Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín will be performed on February 23, 2019 at 7:30 pm at Fisher Auditorium(403 S. 11th Street) in Indiana, PA.
The "extraordinarily beautiful and moving" concert/drama commemorates the courageous Jewish prisoners in the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp during World War II who performed Verdi's Requiem 16 times, as an act of defiance and resistance to their Nazi captors. Defiant Requiem is a complete live performance of Verdi's Requiem interspersed with historic film, testimony from survivors and narration that tells this tale of audacious bravery. This performance features the full Verdi Requiem with the chorus and soloists accompanied by a single piano, as it was in Terezín.
Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín features pianist Arlene Shrut with Colleen Ferguson on violin, the IUP Chorale and Penn State Altoona Ivyside Pride Vocal Ensemble, as well as soprano Annie Gill, mezzo-soprano Bonnie Cutsforth-Huber, tenor Tim Augustin, and bass Joseph Baunoch and actors Richard Kemp and Michael Schwartz. It will be conducted by Maestro Murry Sidlin, president of The Defiant Requiem Foundation and creator of this powerful concert/drama.
This performance of Defiant Requiem is presented by The Defiant Requiem Foundation, Indiana University of Pennsylvania Department of Music, and the Penn State Altoona Department of Arts and Humanities, with funding from the Gretchen M. Brooks University Residency Project.
Tickets for Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín are $10 general admission, $8 for seniors and $6 for students, anyone with a Military ID, and children under 18. Tickets are available online or in person at the The Lively Arts Ticket Office (in the lobby of the IUP Performing Arts Center, 403 S. 11th Street, Indiana, PA).
Murry Sidlin and The Defiant Requiem Foundation also produced an Emmy-nominated documentary film narrated by Bebe Neuwirth that has been praised as a "gripping documentary" (Examiner.com), with "a very powerful message" (CNN). More information is at DefiantRequiem.org.