As first year hallmates at Oberlin College, Sheena Ramirez and Adina Langer developed a deep friendship by sharing their divergent academic strengths — Ramirez was a soprano voice major and Langer a history and creative writing double major.
“We bonded over Sheena’s interest in getting to know the poetry that formed the basis of the art songs she was performing,” Langer says, remembering how they would study the poems together, delving into “the sound, sense, and imagery of what was being conveyed.”
Their mutual exploration continued as Ramirez would reach out to Langer at critical moments for help in transforming poetry into art song — for example, her master’s and doctoral recitals.
Ramirez was particularly drawn to poetry written by victims and survivors of the Holocaust and focused her dissertation on the art songs that contemporary composer Lori Laitman had created from Holocaust texts. She earned her doctor of musical arts degree from James Madison University, where she also served as director of recruitment for the College of Visual and Performing Arts. After finishing her degree in 2021, she moved to Wake Forest University to become associate dean of admissions.
Looking forward, Ramirez began to envision a doctoral concert where she would sing selections from Laitman’s work. At the same time Langer, senior curator at the Kennesaw State University Museum of History and Holocaust Education, realized that the connections between words, music, and memory of the Holocaust would make a perfect subject for a traveling exhibition. The two women decided to work in parallel toward a premiere that would bring together Ramirez’s singing with Langer’s exhibit. Later, a Kennesaw State colleague, composer-in-residence and professor of music Laurence Sherr, became a third partner.
The initial program created by Ramirez, Langer, and Sherr premiered at the Bailey School of Music at Kennesaw State in September 2021. Ramirez sang four pieces by Laitman and Sherr’s “Yid, du partizaner” and offered commentary on the Laitman works.
The initial program created by Ramirez, Langer, and Sherr has evolved since its debut, as it traveled to James Madison University, in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where Ramirez earned her doctorate, to Oberlin College, and to other sites.
The latest program is a six-part festival series, “Remembrance and Resilience: Commemorating Stories through Music and Art,” performed mostly in Trenton, that will run from May 7 through June 18.
“The festival will weave together music, visual art, and community dialogue to honor journeys of survival,” according to the event’s press release.
The program’s journey to Trenton began when Adina Langer’s mother, pediatrician Mindy Langer of Princeton Junction, told her choir director, Alicia Brozovich, who is also artistic director of The LOTUS Project, about Adina’s exhibit, “Words, Music, Memory — (Re)presenting Voices of the Holocaust,” which was slated to be on display at the Jewish Center in early spring 2025. This exhibit explores the process of Holocaust commemoration through literature, music, and performance, highlighting the words of eight Holocaust victims and survivors and the chains of commemoration that have carried their words across generations.
Conversations ensued between curator and choir director. Given LOTUS’s “strong interest in elevating voices of important topics in the community — anything related to advocacy and social justice issues,” the subject matter of Langer’s exhibit “seemed like a logical connection to this being a broader project,” Brozovich says. Indeed the range of the final series moves from the voices of Holocaust victims and survivors to U.S. immigration history and policy and finally to five immigrants who have built new lives in Central Jersey.
The concert series also meshes with another of LOTUS’s goals, to bring to Trenton a spring festival of classical music modeled on Charleston’s Spoleto Festival, where some LOTUS musicians have performed.
“We were inspired by it and how it has revived and developed the economy in Charleston,” Brozovich says. “We are all interested in taking that model and seeing if we can apply it in Trenton.”
The series was designed so that different themes are intertwined. As Brozovich writes in an email: “These events are not meant to be singular, isolated experiences; the series is meant to flow together as an overarching story.”
One example of the connections between different parts of the series occurs in the Sunday, May 18, chamber music concert. The third Laitman cycle performed that day, “In Sleep the World Is Yours,” is based on three poems by Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger; the first of those poems, “Lullaby,” appears in Langer’s accompanying exhibit, “Words, Music, Memory.”
Although Meerbaum-Eisinger died of typhus at age 21 in the Michailowka labor camp, 52 of her poems survived in a notebook that she gave her boyfriend, who managed to protect them while in a forced labor camp himself. “Lullaby” is about a mother comforting a crying child, who tells her baby that “in sleep no hatred, no insult you’ll get/In sleep you’re not feeling the cold.”
When originally conceived in summer 2024, says Brozovich, this series was meant to be “a celebration of the diverse heritage we have in Trenton and this area of country.” The celebratory aspect is still in place, she adds, “but there is more of a serious undertone now — the peripheral resources we are offering so people feel they can contribute to their local community that is being touched by current events.”
Also tied to World Refugee Day, which occurs on June 20, the series is a uniquely Trenton event, which fulfills one of Langer’s initial hopes when she created her “Words, Music, Memory” exhibit.
“My dream is that the exhibit would evolve to meet needs of the community it plays in,” she says. “It is also about people who experienced a traumatic history: people who had to immigrate, relocate, and build new lives; immigrant and refugee stories always have had a strong resonance with me.”
Details about the series: Pay what you can, with a suggested donation of $25 for each event; all proceeds will all go to I-Rise to help settle displaced families locally. For more information, check the Lotus website, thelotusprojectnj.org, or contact Alicia Brozovich, alicia@thelotusprojectnj.org.
Three self-guided exhibits will be open for viewing at 120 East State, Trenton, the site of former Presbyterian Church being transformed into a cultural arts and community space. The site will be open on Wednesdays from May 7 through June 18 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 4 to 7 p.m.:
On May 7, an expanding set of exhibits opens with “Words, Music, Memory: (Re)presenting Voices of the Holocaust.”
On May 28, the second exhibit, “Refuge or Refusal,” will move into the space; it examines pivotal moments in U.S. immigration history and policy, encouraging reflection on the nation’s role as a refuge.
On June 11, the “Compassion and Courage” exhibit will open and be integrated with the first two exhibits; it features new work by LOTUS’s artist-in-residence Alia Bensliman, inspired by five local stories of Haitian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Ugandan refugee experiences.
The six events in the series follow:
Exhibit and Discussion, “Words, Music, Memory”: An opening discussion and reception in anticipation of the May 18 chamber concert. LOTUS leadership will talk about the festival series and its three accompanying exhibits. The “Words, Music, Memory” exhibit will open for afternoon viewing at 4 p.m. Wednesday, May 14, 5:30 to 7 p.m., 120 East State Street, Trenton.
Chamber Concert, “(Re)presenting Voices of the Holocaust”: A trio of soprano, piano, and oboe will perform works by Lori Laitman and Jake Heggie that reflect on Holocaust remembrance and resilience. Sunday, May 18, 4 to 5:30 p.m., St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, 140 North Warren Street, Trenton.
Panel and Reception: “Refuge or Refusal”: A panel from Interfaith-RISE (Refugee and Immigrant Services and Empowerment), or I-RISE, will discuss the “Refugee or Refusal” exhibit as well as I-RISE’s work in Central Jersey facilitating and supporting the self-sufficiency and community integration of refugees and asylees from across the world. The planners invited I-Rise, Brozovich says, because it is “an organization that is actively helping people to resettle.” Wednesday, June 4, 5 to 7 p.m., 120 East State Street, Trenton.
Preview Concert and Composer Talk: Composer Laurence Sherr will talk about his own experience as the son of immigrants and the child of a Holocaust survivor (his mother) and will discuss “Fugitive Footsteps,” the piece he composed based on the life and poetry of Nelly Sachs, who appears in the “Words, Music, Memory” traveling exhibit. Then the LOTUS Chorale will perform selections from “Fugitive Footsteps,” as a preview to the final concert on June 15. Sunday, June 8, 4 to 5:30 p.m., Stone Hill Church, 1025 Bunn Drive, Princeton.
Artist Talk and Reception, “Compassion & Courage”: Artist-in-residence Alia Bensliman will talk about her process in developing portraits of five immigrants in Central Jersey as well as her own and her family’s experience as immigrants. The exhibition of her work will open for evening viewing at 4 p.m. Wednesday, June 11, 5:30 to 7 p.m., 120 East State Street, Trenton.
Choral-Orchestral Concert, “Membra Nostri: Hands of Hope”: The concert is designed to be a community event. Brozovich explains: “We are performing these pieces of music that are by people who have been touched by the refugee experience or that relate to the refugee experience.” Two local refugee musicians from Ukraine and Afghanistan will be featured in the concert.
The musical program includes Laurence Sherr’s “Fugitive Footsteps” and Caroline Shaw’s “To the Hands.” The concert will also include three children’s choruses — Bordentown Regional Middle School Select Choir, Cranbury school choirs, and Trenton Children’s Chorus. Sunday, June 15, 4 p.m., Patriots Theater at the War Memorial, 1 Memorial Drive, Trenton.
For more information and links to purchase tickets, visit www.thelotusprojectnj.org.
