ARTS ENCORE
Andrew Koehler with pictures of his grandparents who emigrated from the Ukraine to the U.S. following the Holodomor there.
mother’s side, a paternal great-grandfather was also jailed by Soviet authorities and never heard from again, says Koehler. Now, more than 80 years later, Koehler will shine a spotlight on the Holodomor in two performances by the Kalamazoo Philharmonia and the Bach Festival Chorus. They will perform the North American premiere of “Requiem for Those Who Died of Famine” May 19 in Chicago, and on June 2 they will present the requiem to Kalamazoo in a Bach Festival performance at Chenery Auditorium. The requiem was written in 1992 by Ukrainian composer Yevhen Stankovych and incorporates the words of Ukrainian poet Dmytro Pavlychko. “It’s remarkable that it was created the year after the Soviet Union dissolved,” Koehler says, noting that the piece includes religious themes and “names the crimes that were committed.” “None of that would have been possible even a few years before,” Koehler says, because a totalitarian state would not have allowed that freedom of expression. Musically, “there’s a pretty fascinating range of idioms at work in the requiem,” says Koehler, an associate professor of music at Kalamazoo College. It mixes canonical classical themes with orthodox religious chants, veering between the secular and the sacred. It has passages of “violence and roughness,” but also passages of “beautifully austere simplicity.” It also includes what are called aleatoric passages, where the notes are not written out and the musicians play at will. “This is an assertion of the individual against the hierarchical leader,” Koehler says. The Holodomor, which occurred under Stalin’s rule, is not as widely known a tragedy as the Holocaust, but in some ways it bears a resemblance to the Holocaust, Koehler says. “It was carried out with such intentionality, such cruelty.”
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Resonating Themes
Two choral pieces share themes of power abuse When Bach Festival Chorus member Rick Van Enk heard that the chorus would be singing a requiem for those who died in the Soviet-induced famine in Ukraine in the 1930s, he thought of another piece of music that might go well on the same program. He suggested “Belshazzar’s Feast” to the chorus’s conductor, Chris Ludwa, and Ludwa passed the suggestion on to Kalamazoo Philharmonia conductor Andrew Koehler, since the two groups would be performing together June 2. “Belshazzar’s Feast” will open the concert. The piece, composed by William Walton with biblical text selected by Osbert Stillwell, is based on a story in which Belshazzar, the king of Babylon, uses the temple goblets of the Jews, who were then slaves in Babylon, to drink wine at a big banquet with his nobles, wives and concubines. During the banquet, the fingers of a human hand appear and write on the wall that God will bring Belshazzar’s reign to an end. Belshazzar is killed that night, and his kingdom is taken over by the Medes. Musically, “Belshazzar’s Feast” is quite different from “Requiem for Those Who Died of Famine” but the themes are similar, say both 36 | ENCORE MAY 2018
Koehler and Van Enk. “The major connection is that these are both tales of historic injustices,” Koehler says. Both deal with power and powerlessness, with food being used as a tool of power — some are allowed to enjoy it while others are denied it, he says. VanEnk sees resonances to contemporary events in both the requiem and “Belshazzar’s Feast.” Van Enk says he suggested “Belshazzar’s Feast,” “as a way to call attention to the precedent of a blasphemous national leader and what happened to him when he went too far.” Van Enk says the concert as a whole “shows that choral music can have an important role in society beyond just aesthetics. The power of this music is in the social commentary.” A portion of the concert proceeds will go to the Foods Resource Bank, which raises funds to support developing-world farm families and communities in growing their own food, earning incomes, and achieving sustainable food security.