Nashirah, the Jewish Chorale of Greater Philadelphia Presents – Love in every language.

Come, treat yourself to beautiful songs of love from around the world. This concert, is the joyous collaboration between two guest choirs from New York, Nashira and a string quartet. It is an inspired product of creative partners from two cities, Cantor Natasha Hirschorn of Ansche Chesed Congregation and Dr. Julia Zavadsky of Temple and Rutgers Universities. They have selected stunning musical settings of poetic texts from Russian shtetls to Florence, folk tunes to contemporary choral repertoire, Israeli pop songs to eternal verses from the Song of Songs.

At the heart of the concert is the WORLD PREMIERE of “That Love” by Palestinian Israeli composer Wisam Gibran, based on verses of  “The Prophet” by Khalil Gibran.

“As a Palestinian living in Israel, I see a major challenge…The spirit of my musical language is based on openness and mutual listening. It relies on the assumption that individual identity is formed, not inherited, that it comes from the future, not the past”- Wisam Gibran

Music is poetry, poetry is music, as natural together as bees and blossoms. Dr. Zavadsky also reminds us the vocal arts have a power to “build bridges between communities, beauty to heal our broken world”.

He was full of tenderness; she was very hard

And as much as she tried to stay thus

Simply and with no good reason

He took her into himself and set her down

In the softest, softest place.

from “Five Hebrew Love Songs”, poem by Hila Plitman, music by Eric Whitacre

Please join us on May 19th at 3PM at the Curtis Institute of Music next to Rittenhouse Square.

For more details and ticket info – https://www.nashirah.org