JERUSALEM, Jan. 6 (JTA) — A Jerusalem composer has fused recordings of concentration camp survivors during the liberation of the camps with original music to commemorate Jewish freedom fighters from the Holocaust. Stephen Horenstein, founder of the Jerusalem Institute of Contemporary Music, recently unveiled the compilation piece, which was 10 years in the making. After being approached to collaborate on an “environmental sound sculpture” to honor Jewish freedom fighters, he said he stumbled onto a rare collection of 78-speed records stored at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. “Using special electronic filter technology, I was able to cut through the many layers of decay and recover the glorious sounds from 12 of the records. What I heard were people singing and talking, mostly in Yiddish,” he said. He then combined the recordings with a modern composition, to create the seven-minute piece named “Andarta,” Hebrew for memorial. Horenstein first presented the piece before Jewish educators participating in the Eighth Jerusalem Fellows Colloquium in Jerusalem earlier this year. He plans to release it this spring as part of a retrospective CD of his life’s work.
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