In partnership with Present Music, Milwaukee’s fearless contemporary music ensemble, Token Creek Chamber Music contributes to a five-month residency of music and lectures honoring the Violins of Hope with the concert FRAGMENTS of TIME. The program—for string quartet, piano, and electronics—offers contemporary classics together with newer works reflecting on World War II and the Holocaust. Music of Steve Reich, Yotam Haber and Olivier Messiaen will be performed.
Whether it’s the recorded spoken-word fragments from World War II survivors driving the pulse of Steve Reich’s iconic Different Trains, the fragments of liturgical music reconstituted for the 21st Century by Yotam Haber, the spirituality of a fragment of Messaien’s Quartet for the End of Time, or individual stories of the Holocaust-era instruments in the Violins of Hope collection, stitching these fragments of time together offers a chance for healing and understanding for future generations.
The concert will display Holocaust instruments from the Violins of Hope collection.
VIOLINS of HOPE WISCONSIN: Violins of Hope comprises a private collection of violins, violas, and cellos, all of which were collected since the end of World War II. Many of the instruments belonged to Jews before and during the war. Weaving a tapestry throughout our community, the Violins of Hope-Wisconsin residency, September through January, will tell stories of instruments from the Holocaust, and the musicians who played them. Lead sponsor is the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra. The many residency events—exhibits, programs, performances—are listed on the Violins of Hope Wisconsin website.

PROGRAM
Yotam Haber: From the Book of Sustenance and Maintenance (viola/piano)
Steve Reich: Different Trains (string quartet with eclectronics)
Yotam Haber: From the Book (string quartet)
Olivier Messiaen: Louange a l’eternite de Jesus (cello/piano)

MUSICIANS
Ji-Yeon Lee & Kyung Ah Oh, violins
Erin Pipal, viola
Adrien Zitoun, cello
John Orfe, piano
Marty Butorac, sound engineer