February 3, 3:00 p.m.
Columbia College
Recital Hall, Spears Music/Art Center

On Sunday, February 3, composer Meira Warshauer will present excerpts from her new CD, Streams in the Desert: Music for Orchestra and Chorus Inspired by the Torah, recently released on Albany Records.  Ann Benson, mezzo-soprano, and Laury Christie, soprano, will perform, with Meira at the piano. Larry Hembree of the Nickelodeon Theatre will moderate a discussion, followed by a reception and CD signing.  Admission is free and open to the public.  For more information contact Columbia College Music Department, 786-3810.

Meira  Warshauer’s compositions have been performed and recorded to critical acclaim throughout the United States and in Israel, Europe, and Asia.  A graduate of Harvard, New England Conservatory of Music, and the University of South Carolina, Dr. Warshauer studied composition with Mario Davidovsky, Jacob Druckman, William Thomas McKinley, and Gordon Goodwin.  She has received numerous awards from ASCAP as well as the America Music Center, Meet the Composer, and the South Carolina Arts Commission.  In 2000, she received the first Art and Cultural Achievement Award from the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina.

Warshauer has devoted much of her creative output to Jewish themes and their universal message. She writes, “The Torah, Jewish teaching and tradition, is likened to water. It is the source of blessing and goodness, filling all who drink from its well with the knowledge of God. I hope this recording will help to satisfy our thirst and encourage us to continue opening our hearts to the Eternal Spirit in each of us.”

The CD was recorded in Bratislava, Slovakia, by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra and Philharmonic Chorus conducted by Kirk Trevor, with soloists Stephanie Gregory, soprano, Jennifer Hines, mezzo soprano, Michael Hendrick, tenor, and Carol Potter, narrator. Two of the works included on the CD were premiered in Columbia. Shacharit was first performed at the Koger Center in 1989, a concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of Hillel at USC.  Donald Portnoy conducted the Hillel Festival Orchestra with sorpano Laury Christie, tenor Gene Ferguson, and narrator Leigh Soufas.  The South Carolina Philharmonic premiered Ahavah (Love) with the Columbia Choral Society, Jena Eison, mezzo soloist in 1994.
 
On the compositions selected for this performance, she says “The Sabbath Morning Service is a spiritual journey of praise, revelation, prayer, and exultation. Shacharit is a personal expression of this journey. It emanates from my soul’s yearning to relate something of the awe and beauty I feel in the presence of the Holy One. Like Streams in the Desert was commissioned and premiered by the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, Neal Gittleman, Music Director, to recognize the 50th anniversary of the state of Israel. It is inspired by Psalm 126, whose theme is the return of exiles to Zion. Ahavah (Hebrew for “love”), references a text from Deuteronomy and asserts the need for morality and love in sustaining life on earth.”

For more information about Meira Warshauer, visit www.meirawarshauer.com.