first contact
Celebrating Women Who Compose by Charlie Griffin
Composers Sharon Omens and Bethany Yucuis Borden appeared on my WPRK radio show , Zero Crossings on February 27 , to discuss their March 7 concert event , Celebrating Women Who Compose , which took place at the Blue Bamboo Center For The Arts in Winter Park . A reprise of the concert was given on March 17 at Christ Church Unity . Presented by the Central Florida Composers Forum to mark Women ’ s History Month , the music was written entirely by women composers , most of whom live and work locally . Our conversation ranged from the Holocaust to virtual reality to the changing experience of women composers in a discipline with a sexist history . What follows is an excerpt from an hour-long conversation .
Charlie Griffin : Sharon , tell me about the concert . Sharon Omens : I ’ m very excited about it . It ’ s basically a celebration of women composers . There are four composers who are local and other women composers from the past and present . I have two pieces on the program . One is called “ Whimsical Rhapsody ,” for violin and piano . I will be playing the piano with a UCF violin student , Jordan Bicasan . And David Suarez is going to be playing a piece of mine for solo fl ute . It ’ s a piece I wrote for my dad , who died two years ago . It ’ s called “ Redemption .” He was a survivor of the Holocaust , and he survived a lot of horrifi c events . He became a successful businessman and overcame a lot of adversity . I wanted to honor him with this piece . It has a mix of tonal music , but parts of it are very dissonant and intense , because he was an intense individual . It takes you on a journey of his life .
What was that like , growing up with a father who had that experience as part of his psyche ? SO : He was a tough cookie . It was not easy . He was fearful and he was mistrustful . Rightfully so . He was a diffi cult man to get along with . There were times when he was very passionate and charismatic and present , and there were times when he was very diffi cult to be with and he would push people out of his life because he couldn ’ t deal with being close to people . As I got older , I made up my mind to make peace with him . Before he died , I spent quite a bit of time with him and just let him know all the things I was grateful for . We were able to make peace . We sang together the week before he died . I held his hand and we sang Jewish songs together and we both cried . It was a kind of a bond that we had — music . So , I felt very strongly that I wanted to honor him musically .
How was music the nature of your bond ? SO : My father was very musical . He had a beautiful , operatic voice . He never trained it , but he loved to sing , and we used to harmonize . He had a beautiful voice and he was passionate about opera . He listened to La Boheme and Madame Butterfly all the time , and that was when he was able to let all his emotions out . He would sit on the couch with a big towel and cry . Music enabled him to access his emotions . It ’ s kind of why I got into music therapy as a career . I worked with the developmentally disabled for a while . Primarily , I took an interest in the elderly , and got involved with working with Alzheimer ’ s patients . Music was a way that they could come out of their shell . It would reconnect them to their childhoods or help them focus .
What was the location where your father experienced the Holocaust ? SO : He has quite a story . He grew up in Warsaw , Poland . He grew up in the ghetto . There was a lot of anti-Semitism , and in 1939 when it really started getting bad , he escaped with his father in an illegal ship . After two months on a ship , they arrived in Palestine , and they got shot at and they had to swim to shore . About three months later , he got a letter from Warsaw that his family had been killed . His mother , his brother , his sister , and a hundred of his relatives . He had a huge family , and they were part of the Warsaw Resistance . A lot of them were hiding in cellars and died of typhoid . It tore my father apart .
He had survivor ’ s guilt . SO : Absolutely . In order to honor his family , he had to make something of his life . He was like a bull . So , I admired him , and yet he was so diffi cult at the same time .
You ’ re the one left struggling to give him a pass on that stuff , right ? You have to have the empathy and the compassion that recognizes what he went through , but that has to be hard , too . I can see that .
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