Janos Gereben wrote:

>The late Robert Shaw was alive and well tonight as Santa Rosa Symphony
>music director Jeffrey Kahane conducted Britten's "War Requiem" in a
>memorable, moving performance.

I warmly endorse Janos' review of this concert, which I attended.
However, I want to comment on one aspect of it: its relevance to the
recent thread "CM and the Young".  Jeffrey Kahane has a son at Santa Rosa
High School, and he conceived of the idea of making the War Requiem project
an interdisciplinary experience for the students at the school.  So besides
using the students to augment the chorus, the project studied such subjects
as the causes of war, the effects of war, is war inevitable, etc.  etc.
Students studied poetry, painting and other arts as they are affected by
war.  All of this quite clearly gave these high school kids a very special
feeling for and insight into the War Requiem, and this was manifested in
their passionately committed singing.  We saw the kids from the chorus in
the lobby after the performance, and it was quite obvious that they had
gone through a tremendous experience.  It confirmed my conviction that the
way to get the young involved with CM is to get them playing and singing
it.

Julia Werthimer <[log in to unmask]>
California, USA