Sharon is newly appointed Violon Solo of the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse
You can read more about Sharon’s appointment here.
The Prinz Project
Sharon gave the premiere of I Will Not Remain Silent, a new concerto by Bruce Adolphe, with the IRIS Orchestra and Michael Stern conducting, on January 24, 2015 in Germantown, Tennessee. Here are some news clips about the premiere, as well as photos from workshops that Sharon and IRIS performed together at local schools. You can find more information on the Prinz Project here.
Commercial Appeal Stage New Article
ClassNotes Residency at Leon High and Cobb Middle School in Tallahassee, Florida May 2014 “Courage and Resilience: Music of the Holocaust”
This is a short clip from Cobb Middle School’s performance on June 7, 2014 of Brundibar, a children’s opera that was performed 55 times in the Terezin concentration camp. This was the second part of a ClassNotes residency about music and the Holocaust in Tallahassee, Florida. ClassNotes’ violinist Sharon Roffman led the orchestra of mostly students from Leon High School; the chorus was comprised of middle and elementary school students. One of the original cast members, Ela Stein Weissberger, now 78 (she played the cat,) came to talk to the students about her experiences in Terezin performing the opera. As Ela herself said, she thought Brundibar would die in the gas chambers. The fact that it still has life is an homage to the composer Hans Krasa and the other musicians who didn’t survive, and a remarkable testament of the power and resilience of the human spirit.
ClassNotes Residency at Leon High School makes the local news!
Letters from Leon students after our “Music in the Holocaust” residency May 2014
Click here to view/download the PDF file of the letters.
Sharon, Max, Caitlin and Leon HIgh School history teacher Erica Sears at Music in the Holocaust Residency, Tallahassee Florida May 2014
The trio plays works written in the concentration camp for Cobb Middle School students, Tallahassee, May 2014
March 20, 2014
Dear Friends,
I’m not so good at keeping others informed of my news, but as spring is here — that traditional time of taking stock, reorganizing and looking ahead — I thought I’d write a letter to the Internet world out there and tell you what I’ve been up to and what’s ahead. I might get long-winded, so you can skip around by clicking on these headings. Travels, Skype Teaching in Australia, ClassNotes Holocaust Residency, Joachim Prinz Violin Concerto
Travels
This year I’ve travelled far and wide and had lots of fun. Some highlights include guest leading with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in Edinburgh and Swedish Radio Symphony in Stockholm, an amazing week at the Banff Center in Canada with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and a fun tour of Japan with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Also exciting this year was performing a new rondo for violin and orchestra, written for me and the Boston Classical Orchestra by Thomas Oboe Lee. Coming up, I’m looking forward to spending much of the summer in France, as concertmaster of the Orchestre d’Auvergne, a small chamber orchestra, and then back to the US for some fun summer chamber music.
Skype Teaching in Australia
For the last few years, under the auspices of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, I have been teaching elementary school students via Skype at Picton Elementary School near Sydney, Australia in collaboration with Melissa Wheeler, a visual artist. We have been exploring connections between music and visual art. I was excited to come to Australia in November for a residency at Picton and meet the students in person. At the end of the residency, I and 3 other members of ACO played a concert for the school, and the students’ artwork was displayed around the auditorium. I took this video of some of the artwork…
(Here are transcripts of the captions, written by the students and teachers.)
“4J learnt a haiku poem. With Sharon and the ACO musicians 4J composed a piece of music for the haiku poem. They then created a key using patterns for the Haiku. They worked with Melissa the artist to produce this artwork that reflects the haiku. They had so much fun and learnt so much!”
“During our skype sessions with Sharon we listened to how she used her violin to represent different emotions and feelings. We looked at art work by Picasso and how he used different colours and shapes to show his emotions and thoughts. We combined both of these ideas and completed abstract faces showing different emotions using lines and colour.”
“We listened to music from Peter and the Wolf and used crayon and water colour paint to show how the music made us feel. Some used realistic forms while other used abstract shapes.”
ClassNotes Holocaust Residency
This coming April, the non-profit that I started, ClassNotes, is teaming up with Leon High School in Tallahassee, Florida, for a special residency about the role of music in the Holocaust. With Max Mandel, viola and Caitlin Sullivan, cello, we will visit the history, orchestra and chorus classes, reaching over 300 kids. A final concert on May 3 will conclude the residency, open to the community at large, which will feature performances by us, the school chorus and the school orchestra, featuring music that was written and performed in the concentration camps.
In tandem with our residency, on June 6 and 7, Cobb Middle School in Tallahassee will present a staged production of Brundibar, a children’s opera by Jewish Czech composer Hans Krasa, which was originally performed by the children of Theresienstadt concentration camp in occupied Czechoslovakia. I will work with and lead the pit orchestra of students. One of the original children who performed the opera at Terezin, concentration camp survivor Ela Stein Weissburger, will come to share her story.
Joachim Prinz Violin Concerto
I’m thrilled to be premiering a new violin concerto by Bruce Adolphe with the IRIS orchestra and conductor Michael Stern in January 2015 in Tennessee. A few years ago I approached Bruce (whom I met when I was twelve!) and asked him if he would write a violin concerto for me. He mentioned that he had been wanting to write a violin piece inspired by the life of Joachim Prinz, a rabbi who lived in Berlin in the 1930s and saved many lives by urging Jews to leave Germany; Prinz then emigrated to the US, became friends with Martin Luther King Jr. and was a very active presence in the civil rights movement. (He gave the speech just before MLK’s I have a Dream speech in the March on Washington.) I was very excited about this idea, because in the wake of the Newtown shootings and so much other violence in our country and around the world, I had been brainstorming ways to use music to teach empathy, express emotions, and combat bullying. When Bruce told me his idea, I thought it could be a great backdrop for an interdisciplinary school curriculum connecting history, literature, art and music, teaching the Holocaust, Civil Rights, and the role arts can play in fighting injustice and preserving the human spirit.
I wrote to Michael Stern, conductor of the IRIS orchestra, an adventurous chamber orchestra who’s mission is to “to present innovative programming in combining treasures of the classical cannon alongside exciting American repertoire, including new works commissioned and premiered by IRIS; and to bring consistent service to the community.” Michael and the executive director of IRIS, David DePeters, were excited about the idea too and commissioned the piece for the premiere in January 2015. IRIS has put together an education committee and we are in the process of creating curriculum and outreach activities that will take place in the fall of 2014 in public schools in the Germantown/Memphis area. More info on this to come. Last thing about this project – on a personal note, the most amazing, goose-bump-inducing coincidence occurred after all of it had been put in motion — I was talking to my mom about the project and she said, “Wait… Joachim Prinz? He married us!” Yes, it turns out that my grandparents knew Joachim Prinz from Germany and asked him to marry my parents. Here is a picture of my mom and Joachim Prinz at my parents’ wedding. It feels like destiny that this project arose and I’m very much looking forward to working with the students and premiering the concerto.
I think that’s all for now; for anyone who actually made it to the end of this rambling letter, I wish you all a happy springtime and great music listening.
Sincerely,
Sharon
Spring 2013
Upcoming ClassNotes Carnegie McGraw Hill Concerts for 3-6 yr olds, May 12 and June 12, 2013. Free! For more info, http://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2013/5/12/0300/PM/McGraw-Hill-CarnegieKids-Class-Notes/
The Boston Classical Orchestra has commissioned composer Thomas Oboe Lee to compose a new work for violin and orchestra, specifically for Sharon and the BCO. World premiere October 2013. For more info, http://www.bostonclassicalorchestra.org/schedules-and-tickets/schedule/
Spring 2012
For the last few months, Sharon has been teaching via Skype a class of students at Picton Elementary School near Sydney, Australia! Under the auspices of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Sharon and Australian visual artist Melissa Wheeler, have been working with a class of 7 and 8 year olds, exploring connections between music and visual art. For a culminating project, the students composed a piece (their own, original Four Seasons) for solo violin using a graphic notation that they invented. Below are photographs of some of their artwork leading up to the graphic notation, as well as their pieces, which are based on haikus they wrote about each season.
Exciting News! Next season, ClassNotes is teaming up with Carnegie Hall!