The women of Oratorio Terezin

From April 10 to 17, Vanier College held numerous activities about the history and the horrors of the Holocaust. Mrs. Fazal came to talk about her piece as it was chosen to be performed in a benefit concert for the Vanier College Foundation. On May 4 at Place des Arts, the Vanier College Choir, along with three other choirs, the Amati Orchestra and three soloists will join together for the Montreal premiere of Oratorio Terezin.

Conductor Erica Phare will be leading Vanier’s and the McGill Conservatory Youth Choir. “I was blown away by this piece when I first heard it,” said Mrs. Phare, who’s well known in the music department at Vanier College. “We hear hope, especially in the children’s voice.”

Mrs. Fazal then came to the stage to talk about her composition. When asked how the idea for her piece came about, she answered that it “grew out of a gift.” She explained to the audience that a German colleague of hers gave her a poetry book written by children who perished at Auschwitz titled I never saw a butterfly. “I was so touched by the poems. It’s hard to believe that children actually wrote such horrendous stories.”

Once she finished reading the book, she put it back on the shelf, but one year later, something amazing happened. “I was home, not doing anything in particular, I turned my head and suddenly I saw the book jumped back from the shelf. It was like I had to make something out of it.” It was after this moment of divine intervention that Ruth Fazal started to work on what was to become Oratorio Terezin.

(Photo: Robert Del Tedici)

(Photo: Robert Del Tedici)

<@CP">(Photo: Jacques Pharand)