Anticipating Opening Night, 2011

Librettist Bernie Kaplan (left) and composer Roger Ames send a video greeting to everyone with the Minnesota Oratorio Society who are involved in the May 15, 2011, production of Remember Warsaw.

How 'Remember Warsaw' Came to be Produced

In Memoriam: Warsaw 1943, is a classical musical drama for the concert stage, was originally commissioned by the Choral Society of Greensboro, North Carolina, William Carroll, Artistic Director. It was then further resourced by Long Island Masterworks Chorus, Frances Roberts, Artistic Director and Conductor, who first performed it to widespread acclaim in 1998.

A further developed and revised text and music, now titled Remember Warsaw, was produced and performed in 2011 to standing ovation by the Oratorio Society of Minnesota, under the direction and baton of Matthew Mehaffey* and with mezzo-soprano Adriana Zabala as Rachael, baritone Bradley Greenwald as Aaron, and baritone Dieter Bierbrauer as Joshua. However, Ames and Kaplan still felt more work needed to be done.

A newly edited and revised edition, which featured the enhanced roles of the narrative sections that frame both the story and the choral sections, was mostly completed by Ames and Kaplan before the untimely passing of Roger Ames. The now finally completed Remember Warsaw--an oratorio that has magnificently evolved into a classical musical drama for the concernt stage--represents the fulfillment of Ames and Kaplan’s vision of the work and is awaiting a very much anticipated and long overdue world premiere.

*Click here to listen to excerpts from this production.

'Shoah of the Should Have Been' and 'Kaddish for the Six Million and All Victims of Hate'

The recordings linked here are from the world premiere of In Memoriam: Warsaw 1943 by the Long Island Masterworks Chorus at Temple Beth El in Great Neck, New York, in 1998. Although the recordings are imperfect, they capture the stunning power and depth of the production conducted by Frances C. Roberts.

"Shoah of the Should Have Been"

"Kaddish' for the Six Million and All Victims of Hate"

'For Six Million Lost, a Memorial in Music'

New York Times, May 3, 1998,

by Barbara Delatiner:

WHEN Roger Ames, a composer whose operas, musicals, oratorios and liturgical music are performed throughout the United States and Europe, was asked to write a choral-orchestral piece about the Holocaust in the early 1990s, his immediate response was an unequivocal no. ''I felt it was a job for a Jewish composer,'' recalled Mr. Ames, who lives in Port Washington and East Hampton. I didn't think that I, as a non-Jew, had any business writing such a work.'' (Read full review here.)

'Giving Voice to Horror'

Newsday, April 30, 1998, by Steve Parks:

"At first, neither the comoposer nor the librettist felt capable of the artistry that would be required of them.

"How do yoyu make art of this?" Roger Ames recalls asking himself when he received a proposal to write an oratorio about the Holocaust.

(Read full preview here.)

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