released by Acis on March 23, 2024
This beautifully documented disc traces art songs in the Jewish diaspora from the late nineteenth century to the music of today. The two living composers are Lori Laitman and Yehudi Wyner, still with us at the time of writing, aged 94…Laitman and Wyner are programmed one after the other. Laitman’s setting develops like a habanera, the piano joining with the cello, played by Sarah Freiberg; a strong example of her song setting. (Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International, May, 2024)
Artsongs of the Jewish Diaspora is an exceptionally timely and important release. Bass-Baritone Ian Pomerantz and pianist Byron Schenkman have lovingly gathered sixteen songs and three instrumental pieces by ten composers that combine to form a deeply moving portrait of the experience of worldwide dispersal known as the Jewish Diaspora…Wyner is one of only two living composers among the ten. The other is Lori Laitman (b.1955), who at a glance would seem to be the outlier of the group. In fact, her song “Beneath the Whiteness of Your Stars” from the song cycle The Seed of Dream, is a marvelous addition to the proceedings. This song, along with the other four that comprise the larger work, are settings of the poetry of Abraham Sutzkever, who describes what it was like to live in the Jewish ghetto of Vilnius (in what is now Lithuania) during World War Two. These words were actually sung onstage in 1943, soon after they were written, as part of a theatrical production that was performed in the ghetto. Abraham Brudno (1900-1943) composed the music, and Laitman made the commendable choice to honor the earlier composer by incorporating certain aspects of his setting into her own. The result is a song of both striking immediacy and remarkable timelessness that seems to capture so many contrasting feelings and colors. (Gregory Berg, The Journal of Singing, Sept/Oct 2024)
