Black Oak Ensemble concert and conversation at Newport Classical

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Black Oak Ensemble, a string trio boasting three of Chicago’s most enterprising and dynamic chamber musicians, makes its Newport debut at The Breakers on July 6 at 8 p.m. with an evening of inspired and uplifting works by six promising, early 20th century Jewish composers originally from Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the Netherlands. In today’s context, the works evoke a sadness of lives lost and potentially unfulfilled, yet there is joy, community, and a familiarity to be found in each composition.

This concert is dedicated to the Bazarsky Family Foundation in recognition of their generous support of Newport Classical.

PROGRAM:
DICK KATTENBURG Trio à cordes
SÁNDOR KUTI 
Serenade for String Trio
HANS KRÁSA 
Passacaglia & Fuga for String Trio
GIDEON KLEIN 
Trio for violin, viola, and cello
PAUL HERMANN 
Strijktrio
GÉZA FRID 
Trio à cordes, Op. 1
*Program subject to change

At 3 p.m., a moderated conversation will take place at Temple Shalom in Middletown, in collaboration with the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island. President & CEO Adam Greenman will lead a discussion with Holocaust Scholar Barbara Wahlberg and the musicians of the Black Oak Ensemble. Admission is FREE with advanced registration.  

Barbara Wahlberg

Barbara Wahlberg is the current VP for Education at the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center (SBHEC) in Providence, Rhode Island. She is also a Teaching Fellow of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington, D.C. since 2002. She taught in the public school setting for 28 years, 24 of them at Cranston High School East as an ELA teacher, where she taught a Holocaust unit to her tenth grade students which centered on the reading of Eli Wiesel’s Nobel Peace Prize winning memoir Night. Prior to that, she taught at North Providence High School, where she first taught Night to her senior students. 

In addition to her work at the SBHEC and the USHMM, she has worked with the USCShoah Foundation on their IWitness activities program. She has presented numerous workshops on the Holocaust as part of her mission outreach.  Ms. Wahlberg also helped to draft the Holocaust and Genocide education bill that was signed into law in 2016 by Governor Raimondo, mandating Holocaust and Genocide education in all Rhode Island schools in grades 6-12. She currently also serves on the Governor’s Commission for Holocaust and Genocide Education, another bill that was signed into law by Governor McKee in August 2021.  This commission will ensure that Holocaust and Genocide education is being taught in every high school and middle school across the state of RI, which lends great support the the 2016 Holocaust and Genocide Education Law. 

Tickets to the concert can be purchased for $50-$95 and are available at newportclassical.org/event/black-oak-ensemble-silenced-voices. You can register for the conversation at that link as well.

 
Holocaust, Newport Classical, Temple Shalom, music