A love song from the Holocaust

Imagine a love song written during the Holocaust. Makes you shiver. But so much Jewish music is a velvety blend of sadness and grace; the intermingling of the two gives resonance to the art.

“Unter Dayne Vayse Shtern” is that rare breed, a love song borne of the Shoah. (I’ve seen the Yiddish title translated both as “Under the White Stars” and “Under Your White Stars.”) As I wrote in this Friday's Weekly, Stanford composer Jonathan Berger was taken by the song, which Abraham Sutzkever wrote in the Vilna Ghetto in 1943. It’s the root of Berger's piece “Tears in Your Hand,” which has its U.S. premiere next month.

Jonathan was kind enough to send me a partial translation of the song:

I am chased by evil spirits
They goad me on stairways and in courtyards
I have only a broken violin string
with which to sing to you:
Under your white stars
extend your white hand to me
My words are tears
which want to rest in your hand

The song has captured the interest of many musicians, including Israeli singer Chava Alberstein and American actor and tenor Mandy Patinkin. (Click on their names to find audio clips of them singing the song.)

As for Sutzkever, he escaped from the ghetto in 1943 and became a resistance fighter, I learned from Wikipedia. He now lives in Tel Aviv.

I hadn’t known what his fate was, but was warmed to hear it was more sweet than bittersweet.

Pictured: Chava Alberstein. Photo from Aviv Productions.

You can go home again (at least for a latte)

Spotted at the uber-hangout Cafe Borrone last Saturday was TV and film actor James Franco, he of "Spider-Man," "Flyboys" and "Freaks and Geeks."

Ooh, I sound like a gossip columnist. If only I knew what he'd been wearing. But my secret source, who surely wasn't Weekly film critic Tyler Hanley, somehow didn't notice this crucial piece of information.

Not surprising that Monsieur Franco should be around these parts. He's a Palo Alto native and a Paly graduate. And, according to someone who could have been Tyler, he seems like a friendly guy who doesn't mind being recognized. See? We grow 'em nice.

Pictured: James Franco as Harry Osborn in "Spider-Man 2."

That's fantastic

Nice to see local artists hitting the big time (even if we don't know them, we can claim we do).

The folks at Peninsula Youth Theatre have pointed out that a PYT alumnus is making his off-Broadway debut. Nick Spangler joined the cast of "The Fantasticks" earlier this fall, playing The Mute and understudying the role of Matt. The show is playing at the Snapple Theater Center, which I hope is more beautiful than its creepy corporate name.

Before debuting off-Broadway, Nick did many shows around here, working with such South Bay groups as West Valley Light Opera and Sunnyvale Community Players. His resume also says he can walk on his hands and do lasso tricks. And you wonder why I love the theater.

Chorus angelorum

So you have the family holiday traditions, and the yawner December obligations (whee! circling for 45 minutes to find parking at Valley Fair!). Personally, I like the idea of an arts holiday tradition. Now that I have seen Chanticleer's Christmas show at Stanford two years in a row, I'm declaring it a time-honored family ritual. Passed down from me to me.

Plenty of folks go to the concert every year, and last night Memorial Church was full of cheerful red sweaters and families who packed the pews early. There was a warmth you wouldn't expect on a chilly night in a stone sanctuary.

Anyone who has heard the men of Chanticleer sing knows they have stunning, pure voices. But as a singer I was also impressed with their diction. Their words were so crisp that I found myself following along with German, medieval Italian and Latin. I do not speak these languages. But after last night I can pretend.

(Me, interviewing people for a story: "Dicite! Annunitiate nobis!")

Anyone else have local arts holiday traditions to share?

By the way, don't go to chanticleer.com if you're interested in learning more about the chorus (the singers' website is .org). You will end up on some guy's blog called "christophe thinks out loud."

Photo courtesy of Chanticleer's website.

Bluegrass Baroque with Brittany

One of my favorite young musicians will be back in the Bay Area soon, playing a gig in Mountain View. Brittany Haas, a Princeton student hailing from Menlo Park, is a pro in the world of old-time fiddling. When I interviewed her a couple years back, I also found her to be sweet, articulate and totally unpretentious.

Now this sounds like quite a show: Brittany will play on Dec. 16 with bluegrass guitarist Scott Nygaard, sisters Chris and Cassie Webster (Chris is a soul/country singer, and Cassie is a Baroque opera soprano), and jazz bassist Cindy Browne.

The folks at Redwood Bluegrass Associates, who are organizing the shindig, say Brittany and Scott will open the show with a set of fiddle-guitar duets.

Go here to hear "Dry and Dusty," my favorite of Brittany's recordings. It's rare that a song can be mournful and uplifting at the same time, but this one simply soars.

Pictured: Brittany Haas. Photo courtesy of her website.

Ode to the accordion

Last Friday I dropped by Whole Foods for some peanut butter and ended up in a real-life piece of Palo Alto street theater.

The evening’s soundtrack came from Naomi Zamir, who was playing Central European folk songs on her gleaming accordion on the sidewalk. She smiled at me as I stopped to listen. A woman on her way into the store exclaimed: “Squeezebox sister! I play, too.” Zamir would have been happy to play a duet, but she had to settle for a chat with me.

Zamir, who lives in Menlo Park, told me she grew up on a kibbutz in Israel. The Hungarian nurses that she and the other children had gave her a connection to Central European music. The nurses also had too-vivid memories of World War II.

Zamir kept playing her plaintive songs, and presently a young woman came out of the grocery store in tears. The music, she said, made her emotional because it reminded her of her home in New Orleans. She comes from a neighborhood that was destroyed by the hurricane, and she and her accordion-playing friends all ended up in different areas after the disaster.

She lingered for a long time to listen, wiping her face from time to time, and Zamir said encouragingly, “It’s good to cry.”

Photo by Davi Cheng, courtesy of morgueFile.com.