Special Events

Testaments of the Heart was exactly that.  Performed at the Schwartz Center on Emory University’s campus on September 28th, it rescued a corner of the story of the Holocaust from cliché and ignorance and false familiarity.

To be in the room as music that has been in suspended animation for 70 years, suddenly comes alive through the extraordinary talents of members of the Atlanta Symphony, the St Philips Cathedral choir, Maestro Michael Palmer, actress Janice Akers, pianist Will Ransom, Soapbox Studios and many others, was to be changed, to be witness to what is possible, and ultimately what is necessary.  It was to awaken to the voices of life insisting on transformation even as the breath was being crushed out of them.

Courtney Collins in bowler hat and bamboo cane strutted through the sarcastic Numbers by William Hilsley, gentle, whimsical, sweet tunes for clarinets, flutes, guitars,-trombone!-saxophone by Robert Heilbut, gave way to his arrangement of the early Ha-Tikvah.  An exquisite, haunting string quartet by Emile Goue partnered with the photographs from Ann Weiss’ Eyes from the Ashes collection.  A powerful piano piece by Viktor Ullmann set Ranier Maria Rilke’s poetry cycle, The Lay of Love and Death of Christoph Rilke.

The results of the effort to put on the concert are encouraging.  Professor Francesco Lotoro, the musician and scholar who has been collecting and reconciling this music for the last 20 years has come to an agreement with Emory, to house the archives at Emory.  This will assure their safety and availability.  Professor Lotoro will found an Institute in Atlanta and in his home city of Barletta, Italy to carry on his research.

Mythic Imagination will carry on with our Creativity in Captivity series and there are requests for Testaments of the Heart to be performed in other cities and countries.

The extreme circumstance of the concentration camps makes visible the necessity of creativity and creative work as key and core to our humanity.    We hope through Testaments of the Heart and the Creativity in Captivity series to inspire respect and the activation of the creative forces within ourselves in order to transform the challenges, the sufferings and the injustices of our own time.