Almost a year ago, a viral photograph of high school students mugging for the camera with a Nazi salute after a prom in Baraboo caused a worldwide scandal. Since then, some prominent Madisonians have joined with residents of the Sauk County town in public education efforts about the grim realities of fascism and the legacy of the Holocaust. Among these is Teryl Dobbs, associate professor and chair of music education at the University of Wisconsin, Madison School of Music. Having long studied the music of Eastern European Jews under Nazi occupation, Professor Dobbs will share her research with the public at the Baraboo First United Methodist Church on Thursday, May 2nd at 6:30 pm. Her multimedia presentation, which will begin near the end of Yom HaShoah, will focus particularly on the music of Josima Feldschuh, a precocious pianist and composer who lived in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. Josima died at the age of twelve, leaving behind manuscripts of several haunting short piano pieces whose style recalls Chopin. In an interview with Peter Haney, host of WORT’s “Back Porch Serenade,” Prof. Dobbs talks about Josima’s life and music in the context of the Holocaust, gives listeners a foretaste of Thursday’s program, and reflects on music in relation to the social memory of trauma. Musical selections are from a 2017 concert in London that was part of the “Performing the Jewish Archive” Project. Audio from the concert, along with video of lectures and concerts on the subject are archived online by the University of Leeds in the UK.
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