“The Glass House Project” to present the musical culture of Hungarian Jewish communities destroyed by the Holocaust

From May 23-28, 2014, Balassi Institute: Hungarian Cultural Center will stage The Glass House Project, a series of three commemorative concerts as part of its Memorial Year honoring the victims of the Holocaust in Hungary.

The Glass House Project is named for the celebrated Glass House (Üvegház), the most famous among 76 safe houses established around Budapest by the Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz, where thousands of Jews took refuge and found shelter from their persecutors during the Holocaust.

“When I first heard the story of the legendary Glass House (Üvegház), I was profoundly moved,” says trumpeter, bandleader and composer Frank London. “The image of a glass house evokes not just beauty and mystery in a frame of post-modern architecture, but also fairy tales, legends, dreams. And there are the metaphors of a glass house: fragility, secrets, and revelations. The Glass House in Budapest represents protection, innovation, courage, creativity — ideals and values that are reflected in our work together as musicians on the Glass House Project.”

The concert series opens with an informal preview performance on Friday, May 23 at DROM in New York City, followed by concerts on Tuesday, May 27 at 7:00pm at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City and Wednesday, May 28 at 6:00pm at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater in Washington DC.

Frank London of The Klezmatics, has put together a supergroup featuring musicians from both sides of the Atlantic. Joining the group from New York City are four well-known colleagues of Frank London: guitarist Aram Bajakian (Diana Krall, John Zorn, the late Lou Reed), bassist Pablo Aslan (Paquito D’Rivera, Yo-Yo Ma, Shakira), drummer Richie Barshay (Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Esperanza Spalding), and violinist Jake Shulman-Ment.

Coming over from Hungary to join the group will be rising star singer, violinist and composer Szirtes Edina “Mókus”, cimbalom virtuoso Miklós Lukács, avant-garde composer and winds player Béla Ágoston, as well as two Hungarians based in New York: kontra and viola player Áron Székely and traditional vocalist Kata Harsáczki.

Each musician selected to be a part of The Glass House Project is a master of both traditional and contemporary music. Each is on the cutting edge of new and old, blurring distinctions between folk, traditional, jazz, pop, and contemporary classical.

“Whether in the worlds of jazz, klezmer, classical, Hungarian or American pop music, all the musicians in the Glass House Project revel in the act of learning traditional musics and transforming them, making them our own,” says London.

The repertory includes thoroughly reconstructed scores and archival records of long forgotten folk songs, performances range from the reverential to the decidedly experimental.

“I hope the Glass House concert series will give audiences a sense of the richness of the rural Jewish culture of pre-war Hungary, but also serve as a reminder of the crimes committed against Hungarian Jews by their government and scores of their fellow citizens so that we may find the strength to continue to fight intolerance and anti-Semitism everywhere,” said Gergely Romsics, Director of the Balassi Institute – Hungarian Cultural Center New York.

Tuesday, May 27, 7:00 pm
Museum of Jewish Heritage
36 Battery Pl, New York City
Free Admission

Wednesday, May 28, 6:00 pm
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Terrace Theater
2700 F St NW, Washington, DC
Free Admission

Special Preview Concert and Press Date:
Friday, May 23, 7:15 pm
DROM
85 Avenue A (at East 5th), New York City
Tickets: $15 adv / $20 doors; www.ticketfly.com