By Mabel Pais
“This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before,” Leonard Bernstein
“The significance of this concert is that people of all religions – Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism – will be here together and will listen. Pieces of music like Beethoven’s Ninth unite people, giving them a message that we are in this world together and we have to work for peace. That’s the only way we can have some understanding,” Luna Kaufman
“Most remarkable is Maestro Jason Tramm as the University’s director of choral activities and an assistant professor. He has opened Seton Hall’s doors to new musical experiences since his arrival in September 2011 and this is another gift he has given to all of us.” Laurie Pine, Director, Media Relations, Seton Hall University.
Prayer for Peace: The Power of One Voice reunited members of the Seton Hall University Chorus and the greater Seton Hall community with the Mid-Atlantic Opera Orchestra, under the baton of noted conductor and Assistant Professor Jason Tramm. Renowned international guest soloists soprano Allison Charney founder and host of NYC classical concert series “PREformances with Allison Charney at Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Music Center,” baritone Mark Delavan, tenor Adam Klein and mezzo soprano Karolina Pilou of the Metropolitan Opera, and acclaimed violinist Kelly Hall-Tompkins from Broadway’s Fiddler on the Roof performed. Concert narration featured veteran actor Jordan Charney, star of stage, screen and television.
Inspired by Leonard Bernstein’s statement, “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before,” the concert seeks to celebrate peace messengers worldwide.
In keeping with this spirit, the concert honored lifetime messenger of peace, Luna Kaufman, and raised scholarship funds for refugees, said Laurie Pine, Director of Media Relations, Seton Hall University at South Orange, NJ.
Seton Hall University’s School of Diplomacy and International Relations and College of Communication and the Arts premiered the second cycle of their “Prayer for Peace” Concert Series at NJPAC in Newark, New Jersey on Friday, October 27. Inspired by Leonard Bernstein’s artistic mandate, the classical music concert is dedicated to music’s role as an instrument of peace, and took place at NJPAC’s Prudential Hall.
Central to the concert was a unique performance of A Survivor from Warsaw by Arnold Schönberg to honor Luna Kaufman, Holocaust survivor, educator, activist, author and lecturer. A trustee and chairperson emerita of the Sister Rose Thering Fund for Jewish-Christian Studies, Kaufman is the recipient of an honorary doctorate from Seton Hall University in 2009 as well as the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit, given to her by the president of Poland in 2011.
Kaufman’s life illustrates the theme of the Power of One Voice. Luna and her mother were the only two family members to survive the death camps out of 70 family members. Luna served as the New Jersey Opera Board President and was responsible for bringing Hans Krasa’s Brunidbar to North American audiences in 1988 and played a crucial organizational role in the creation of the Liberation Monument in New Jersey’s Liberty Park.
Today she is a tireless champion of Jewish-Christian understanding, having been inspired by the late Sister Rose Thering, the Catholic nun and Seton Hall professor who led the fight to eliminate anti-Semitism from school textbooks. Kaufman is acknowledged for teaching the truest and most profound meaning of forgiveness and reconciliation despite experiencing circumstances unimaginable to most people.
“When I first came to Seton Hall, they asked me to discuss my experiences. I was so bewildered. What do they want to know? To me, at that point, I didn’t talk about the Holocaust because who would talk about it? I was invited to come and talk for a Holocaust Observance in the Chapel. I had my prison uniform. When we left Poland, I was allowed to take only seven dresses, and among them I took this. They counted this as a dress. You know, a piece of fabric to buy and make myself a dress I can always do, but I wanted to have this as my memento. Why? I would never know. And I brought it and it traveled with me to Israel, and from Israel to here. They had it on the altar in the Chapel. I said, ‘Now we have arrived someplace. And now we’re joining hands and working together.’ Shortly after, I met Sister Rose and we became joined together. I was so impressed by what she was doing and the Sister Rose Thering Fund and the University in continuing this work.”
Kaufman shared why Schönberg’s A Survivor from Auschwitz holds a special significance for her. She was incarcerated in a concentration camp very close to Warsaw and saw the flames of the uprising, hoping to be liberated. In the last minute, owners of the factory, who had purchased her and the others for a few dollars each as slave laborers, sent them to Germany. There, she spent another two years in the camps.
“I returned to Poland on a trip with Governor Kean. We went to Auschwitz and Israel. The reporters asked me whether I feel some remorse or feeling like that. I said no.”
She said, “I felt like a victor. I said this is my victory because I survived through, though I lost my father. I lost my sister. We are not going to (lie) down. I said, ‘You know you have to go forward. You have to remember the Holocaust, but this is not enough. You have to do something about it. And you need to look at the other. When we were doing this concert this year I said make sure you include other genocides and other problems. This is a human issue, and we are part of humanity. To me this is a very important message that needs to be delivered.”
Kaufman wants this event to build bridges of peace among all peoples.
“The significance of this concert is that people of all religions – Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism – will be here together and will listen. Pieces of music like Beethoven’s Ninth unite people, giving them a message that we are in this world together and we have to work for peace. That’s the only way we can have some understanding,” she explained.
Laurie Pine, Director of Media Relations, Seton Hall University with a sense of fulfillment, comments, “What an incredible tribute this is to messengers of peace both here and around the world! To witness more than a thousand people gathered together at the Prayer for Peace concert, expressing our humanity and embracing each other at such an important time in our shared history. It was a remarkable testament to what we all can achieve together. I was especially proud of our Seton Hall University students, who worked so hard to be able to achieve such a powerful message along with our friends from the MidAtlantic Opera Orchestra and such fabulous soloists, coming together as a community, making music, making art and inspiring us all to be messengers of peace. Most remarkable is Maestro Jason Tramm who infuses his love of music and teaching with a passion and purpose that continues to enrich the repertoire of Seton Hall. As the University’s director of choral activities and an assistant professor, Jason has opened Seton Hall’s doors to new musical experiences since his arrival in September 2011 and this is another gift he has given to all of us.”
(Mabel Pais is a freelance writer. She writes on The Arts and Entertainment, Social Issues, Health and Wellness, and Spirituality)