‘Violins of Hope’ return to Charlotte, with more stories to tell about the Holocaust
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In 2020, Charlotte native David Karpov was chosen as the youth soloist for the final song in a commissioned piece commemorating the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
The pandemic delayed Karpov’s performance for two years. But now, Karpov is readying to play “Liberation” on a special violin in Charlotte. It’s one of the “Violins of Hope,” a collection of more than 95 restored violins owned by Jewish musicians before and during the Holocaust.
The 40-minute song cycle (complete songs meant to be played together), “Intonations: Songs from the Violins of Hope,” will be performed at two events in Charlotte.
“I’ve never had an opportunity as big as this,” said Karpov, 15. “It’s a great honor to play something so valuable for the memories. This violin has gone through tragedy. It may have been played at a concentration camp. It’s sad, but it’s a hope.”
On April 26 and 28, “Intonations” will be performed by an ensemble of students from the UNC Charlotte Orchestra, Queens University of Charlotte and Central Piedmont Community College, as well as by Karpov, a high school sophomore in the Charlotte area.
Audrey Babcock, assistant professor of voice at UNCC and a mezzo-soprano, and guest violinist Mikylah Myers, professor of violin at West Virginia University will join the group as soloists. Five Violins of Hope from exhibits throughout South Carolina will be sent to Charlotte, two to be played and three for display at these events.
The April 26 performance is at Queens University of Charlotte and part of a larger annual event, the Community Yom HaShoah Commemoration for Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Through music, rituals and testimonials, those who died in the Holocaust are remembered, and survivors, liberators and their descendants are honored.
More than 10 community organizations in Charlotte, including the Levine Jewish Community Center, Temple Beth El and Temple Israel, are partnering to organize this event.
From generation to generation
Talli Dippold, the Stan Greenspon director of Holocaust Education Fellowship Program and the associate director of the Stan Greenspon Holocaust and Social Justice Education Center at Queens, was an integral part of bringing Violins of Hope to Charlotte in 2012.
Back then she was director of Levine-Sklut Judaic Library, at the Center for Jewish Education, 5007 Providence Road, where an exhibit of the violins was hosted.
Dippold regards the violins as a physical link to the past. She couldn’t pass up an opportunity to collaborate with UNC Charlotte and include “Intonations” in this year’s Yom HaShoah.
“The violins represent survival and represent resilience,” Dippold said.
“That they are played now is very powerful. It connotates this concept of L’dor V’dor, (Hebrew for) from generation to generation. It’s harder and harder to connect students to the past,” Dippold added. “The violins that are going to be played are a beautiful link to helping explain and understand the remarkable legacy that the survivors leave for us.”
Telling the Violins of Hope stories
As a musician and music historian, James Grymes, professor of musicology at UNC Charlotte, became fascinated with the Violins of Hope.
Although Grymes was not part of the team bringing 18 violins to showcase at The Dubois Center at UNC Charlotte Center City in 2012, it prompted him to visit the violinmaker behind the Violins of Hope.
Grymes traveled to Tel Aviv, Israel, to meet master violinmaker Amnon Weinstein, the man who owns the Violins of Hope collection with his son, Avshalom Weinstein.
After spending a week with the Weinsteins in their workshop, Grymes decided to write a book highlighting the stories behind six of the violins in the collection. Grymes’ “Violins of Hope: Instruments of Hope and Liberation in Mankind’s Darkest Hour” published in 2014 and won a National Jewish Book Award.
The book tells the stories of what six violinists and their instruments went through during the Holocaust, Grymes said.
The violins you’ll hear in Charlotte
Meg Whalen, a spokeswoman for UNC Charlotte’s College of Arts + Architecture, detailed the history of the two violins that will be played at the concerts:
Myers will play a violin that belonged to Heinrich “Zvi” Haftel, who was first concertmaster of the Palestine Orchestra (later the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra) in 1936.
Orchestra founder Bronislaw Huberman saved some 1,000 lives between 1935 and 1939 by helping Haftel and other Jewish musicians who had been dismissed from their orchestral positions escape Nazi Germany with their families.
And Karpov will perform with a violin made in 1924 by Jewish violinmaker Yaakov Zimermann in Warsaw. It had once belonged to Jewish industrialist Shimon Krongold, who fled to Russia and later wound up in the town of Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where he died of typhus.
After the Holocaust, a survivor from Tashkent returned the violin to Shimon’s brother Chaim, who had not seen Shimon since immigrating to Palestine in 1923.
“This is the only memory that we have from him,” Chaim’s son Nadir told Grymes, referring to the violin. “The only memory and the only story about his life.”
Ashes from Auschwitz
Jake Heggie and Gene Sheer wrote and composed “Intonations” for the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz for a performance in San Francisco in 2020.
Five of the seven songs in the song cycle — Ashes, Exile, Concert, Motele, Feivel, Lament, Liberation — are based on the prologue and four of the six chapters in Grymes’ book.
Grymes’ book and “Intonations” begin with “Ashes.” In the 1980s, a man who played the violin in Auschwitz, brought a violin to Amnon for repairs.
“When Amnon opened up the instrument,” Grymes said, “he discovered ashes inside. He presumed the ashes to be the fallout from the crematorium since this violin played outside Auschwitz. It was too horrific for Amnon to imagine. It’s the seed that begins the project.”
Heggie and Sheer chose to have a solo violinist represent the violin, a mezzo-soprano speak for the violin, and at the end, a youth violinist play “Liberation” as the music’s tone shifts from remembrance to hope, says Grymes.
“Gene Sheer took these chapters and decided to write songs from the perspective of the violin,” Grymes said. “If the violin could tell its story, this is what the violin would say.”
Community Yom HaShoah commemoration
Songs from the Violins of Hope
What: The UNC Charlotte Orchestra will perform “Intonations: Songs from the Violins of Hope.” The ensemble will include students from Queens University of Charlotte, CPCC and violinist David Karpov.
When: 7:30 p.m., April 28
Where: Belk Theater, Robinson Hall, UNC Charlotte, 9201 University City Blvd.
Cost: $8
Details: coaa.charlotte.edu/events/orchestra-songs-violins-hope
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This story was originally published April 21, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
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