Home: A Recital of Immigrant Songs

This recital program, titled “Home”, is curated around the idea of refugees and immigrants. The current conflict in Syria inspired the program to bring awareness to the extreme situation through art.

Works by Brahms and Dvorak, both based on the German idea of Heimweh / Heimatlosigkeit are included in the program. Defined by Marjorie Hirsch in her article, The Spiral Journey Back Home, “The word Heimweh thus became identified with Romantic longing for release from feelings of alienation. To arrive “home” would be to regain a sense of transcendent wholeness. Romantics, in their extreme self-consciousness, perceived that they had lost connection with an original absolute unity.”

Central to the program is a work by University of Southern California composer, Alan Smith, Vignettes: Ellis Island, A Song Cycle in Six Parts for Voice and Piano, based on first person accounts of immigrants from the Ellis Island Oral History Project.  Also included in the program is a new piece with text by a Syrian feminist author living in Syria, Nagat Abdul Samad, depicting the horrors of the conflict from a women’s point of view as well as pieces for cello.

Performed by soprano Emily Martin, cellist Lisa Caravan, and pianist Sezi Seskir.

Cost: $15; $10 members. To expedite the check-in process, please print out and bring a copy of your e-ticket. Will-call tickets may also be purchased online in advance.