The ancient wake-up call comes to the concert hall

By Jennie Szink, Special To The Dayton Jewish Observer

Composer Meira Warshauer has taken the shofar out of the synagogue and put it in front of an orchestra.

Her piece Tekeeyah (A Call) was co-commissioned by the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, which will perform the work at its Jan. 10 and 12 concerts at the Schuster Center.

Warshauer, of South Carolina, said she writes pieces to bring awareness to issues and inspire audiences to take a stand. She was inspired to write Tekeeyah because she wanted the shofar to go beyond calling people to action leading up to and during the High Holy Days.

“I grew up hearing the shofar every Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and I was especially taken by the sound,” Warshauer said of the ram’s horn, one of the world’s oldest wind instruments. “It can penetrate to my core and the vibrations clean me out on the inside.”

She collaborated with Israeli trombonist and shofar player Haim Avitsur of New York to find a way to put a shofar in front of an orchestra. The concerto marks the first time he’s played the shofar in a concert setting.

The horn posed challenges to the composer and the musician since each shofar is a different shape and creates different sounds. They studied the sound of Avitsur’s particular shofar closely. It took Avitsur much experimenting until he got the desired effect.

“(Meira) kept asking me to do more and more and I had to develop the playing to do that,” Avitsur said. “The result is a real instrument that can be played in front of the orchestra. It is a live horn from a live animal and it really does bring (the work) to life.”

Just as the shofar is meant to call Jews to a new start on the High Holy Days, the point of the instrument in Teekeyah is the same.

“The shofar is a clear but animalistic sound, and it is connected to the earth,” Warshauer said. “It’s a paradox in a way. Its earthy sounds comes from an animal, but it cleans us out at the level of the spirit. That is the concrete message of what Judaism is about, to me: Being a vessel for the spirit in a visible form.”

DPO Music Director Neal Gittleman said the audience can expect Tekeeyah to be unlike anything they’ve ever heard.

“There’s a special effect at the end when the entire orchestra sounds like the Tekeeyah,” Gittleman said. “Even the best shofar player can only hold it for a few seconds. When the orchestra plays it, it just goes and goes and goes. It’s the biggest Tekeeyah you’ll ever hear.”

This is the third time the DPO has played works by Warshauer. The first was in 1998 for the world premiere of Like Streams In The Desert, which the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton commissioned to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Israel’s independence.

In 2007, the DPO performed her work, Living, Breathing Earth, which the orchestra co-commissioned. It celebrated what Warshauer called, “the symbiosis of earth; all creatures, plants, and animals pulsating with the breath of life.”

“Dayton is a very welcoming community,” Warshauer said. “The Schuster facility and the fact that it’s in Dayton is just amazing. I’m really excited to come back. I hope to see some of my old friends and meet new friends.”

Avitsur said people may be drawn to the concert because of their curiosity to hear the shofar as part of an orchestra, but they’ll find it moves them in ways they couldn’t have imagined.

“The piece speaks to people of all walks of life,” Avitsur said. “(People) don’t need to be Jewish, because the piece is bigger than one idea. It will be played again and again because it speaks to so many people. What will blow people’s mind is the ability of the instrument. It cuts through barriers and gets to the core of human nature.“

The Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra performs Tekeeyah by Meira Warshauer with shofar soloist Haim Avitsur and Music Director Neal Gittleman conducting on Thursday, Jan. 10 and Saturday, Jan. 12, 8 p.m. at the Schuster Center. Readers of The Dayton Jewish Observer may purchase tickets at half price. Call 228-3630 and mention the password SHOFAR or go to ticketcenterstage.com and type SHOFAR into the coupon ID field.