Jeffrey Schanzer - The Past Is Present (2025)

There is no good time to put the Holocaust behind us; it remains as stingingly relevant today as 80 years ago when the world saw its first glimpses. The memories and stories live on in different ways; in this case through the Schanzer family of New York.

The Past Is Present is a cantata about – and by – Holocaust survivors and their children. All of the text is taken from the oral testimony of members of Jeffrey’s family. The characters are: A Father, who mourns the loss of his first son, who survived the Holocaust but died of leukemia when they immigrated to the United States. A Mother, who describes her flight from the Nazi Blitzkrieg of Poland and later, her life in post-war Europe, traveling to the US, getting married and having children. A Cousin, who describes Schanzer family life before the War and later, her immediate family’s experience under Nazi occupation. A Son, who struggles to understand his place in the world in the aftermath of an event which occurred before his birth. The singers are accompanied by the members of a string quartet, both individually and as a quartet, Bb clarinet, bass clarinet and drums. The visuals for the stage production and the booklets are taken from old family photographs as well as original artwork by Noah Bogan, who is also the son of survivors.

In the movement A Mother’s Story – 1939-40, the Mother describes how, after the Blitzkrieg, she settled for a time in Lvov, Poland (now part of Ukraine). And once again, there are war refugees in that part of Eastern Europe.

This work premiered at The Kitchen in New York City in 1999 and was revived at Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn in 2024 at a time when Holocaust denial and fascism are on the rise. This recording is taken from that concert. May it help lead us to a better future.

“His musical narrative, with the impact of a black-and-white photograph, captures many shades of grief in a contrapuntal dialogue of insistent, recurring themes.” Cecelia Porter, The Washington Post

“Individual movements -- particularly the work’s elegiac first section, ‘Lament for Erik’ -- hold the mournful power of survivors’ tales, the knowledge that the details of each lost life could be multiplied by millions.” – Jon Pareles, The New York Times

Jeffrey Schanzer is a composer and guitarist involved in a wide variety of music, ranging from fully notated to fully improvised. He has studied composition with Morton Feldman and Anthony Davis and guitar with Oswald Rantucci. His recordings include No More In Thrall, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald, where his father was a prisoner, performed by the Sirius String Quartet with percussionist Kevin Norton on the CRI label, Dualities by the Schanzer/Speach Duo on the Mode label and, as a sideman, Leroy Jenkins’ and Joseph Jarman’s Out of the Mist on Ocean Records.