"Long Live Life" at the Retro Dome

"Long Live Life"

presented by the Retro Dome in collaboration with the San José Chamber Orchestra and the National Jewish Theater Festival.

Sunday September 25, 7 p.m. tickets available pre-sale only.all seats $50,reception included
Long Live Life

An evening of affirmation and remembrance of the Jewish experience through music and text.  

Adapted from the name of an actual cabaret show performed in Theresienstadt, (Long Live Life:Theresienstadt 1941-1945), the evening features a one hour performance of staged music and narration.

All the music was written by prominent composers while they were detained at the camp. (Karel Svenk, Viktor Ullman, Gideon Klein, and others). 

Long Live Life performers include a string quartet from the San José Chamber orchestra, a pianist, and singers Stephen Guggenhiem, tenor, Layna Chianakas, mezzo-soprano, Allison Charney, soprano and Kevin Nakatani, bass. 

This will be followed by the official release on CD of Choose Life, by composer Mona Lyn Reese, with text by Delores Dufner. This recently completed recording, at Skywalker Ranch, features the same quartet of solo singers as Long Live Life, in addition to the San José Chamber Orchestra and numerous choirs, including the award-winning Choral Project. 

The dramatic oratorio, Choose Life, Uvacharta Bachayim, draws on Jewish and Christian music and scripture, as well as the writings of Holocaust survivors, to create an ecumenical commemoration of the Holocaust.

It was composed during Mona Lyn Reese's 1993-94 Faith Partners Residency sponsored by the American Composers' Forum and the Otto Bremer Foundation.

Choose Life has received national acclaim and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1995.