Anne Frank Oratorio to Debut Through LA Master Chorale this Month

The Passion of Anne Frank, a haunting, major, new oratorio based on the Diary of Anne Frank, with music and lyrics composed by 125 high school students from downtown Los Angeles' Ramón C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts, is being premiered by the students in conjunction with the Los Angeles Master Chorale Chamber Singers, professional instrumentalists, and student soloists in free matinee and evening performances on Thursday, January 22, at noon, and Friday, January 23, at 7 pm, at the high school's main auditorium. (Ample free on-site parking is available.) The unforgettable hour-long work with compelling arias and emotional choruses tells the poignant story of Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl whose now famous diary was written during the two years she spent in hiding with her family in German-occupied Holland during World War II. The performances are the culmination of the Los Angeles Master Chorale's award-winning "Voices Within" artists-in-residence program, designed to foster collaboration among students as they create and perform their own original choral works. The piece also aligns with the Chorale's "passion music" theme this season, which features passions by Bach, Tan Dun and Richard Einhorn.

Anne Frank chronicled in a diary she received for her 13th birthday her secret thoughts as she became a young woman during the difficult days of Nazi occupation. Two months after her 15th birthday, the diary abruptly ends. The Secret Annex, where Anne had lived, had been raided by German officials and the Frank family - her father, Otto, her mother, and her sister, Margot, along with four other people hiding with them - were separated and sent to concentration camps. Otto was the family's sole survivor after the war. His secretary, Miep, who had helped the family while they were in hiding, found Anne's diary on the floor of the empty annex and kept it for him. Once published, Anne's diary quickly became known around the world, serving as a touchstone for the six million Jews lost during the Holocaust. Permission for the story adaptation has kindly been granted by the Anne Frank Fonds Basel.

The 9th through 12th grade students who composed the piece collaborated over a 20-week period with the guidance and mentorship of singer Alice Kirwan Murray, lyricist Doug Cooney and composer Jonathan Beard, as well as their own choir teachers, Desiree Fowler and Stormy Sacks. They learned how to adapt a classic work of literature, write a libretto based on the adaptation and create the melodies for each movement of the oratorio. They also learned techniques for capturing the "voice" of the characters and how to propel the momentum of the plot and paint the mood of a scene. After the work was completed, students auditioned for feature roles and received vocal coaching to prepare for the culmination performance. This is the fifth year LAMC has offered its "Voices Within" program at the school.

An oratorio is an extended musical composition with a text dramatic in character for solo voices, chorus and orchestra, performed with minimal action, costume and scenery. Complex and sophisticated musical works, they challenge even seasoned composers, making the student's accomplishments particularly noteworthy. Passion music, a type of oratorio, is a musical setting traditionally based on Gospel texts reflecting the persecution and suffering of Christ, but often times by extension used as an allegory for other historical figures who may have suffered much in the same way.

This massive undertaking is part of the Los Angeles Master Chorale's award-winning music education program, "Voices Within," which was originally designed to teach fifth graders collaborative and compositional skills by composing and performing their own original songs and has engaged over 25,000 children and created over 350 original songs since its launch in 2001.

Encouraged by previous successful collaborations involving elementary and middle school students, and with the support of the California Arts Council's Artists-in-School Program, the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Los Angeles Master Chorale adapted the "Voices Within" curriculum to address the advanced maturity of high school students, specifically choral students at the new visual and performing arts high school in downtown LA.

The concert is free, and seating is first come, first served. Reservations required. Visit LAMC.ORG for details.
Cortines High School of Visual and Performing Arts is located at 450 N. Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90012. Campus parking is free (enter on Cesar Chavez Avenue).

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