Composers
About the Kinderkreuzzug Cantata
In the years following his 1933 escape from Nazi Germany, Bertolt Brecht penned some of his most extraordinary and grim anti-war poetry. This bitter, anti-war literary crusade finds one of its most poignant expressions in a ballad of thirty-five 4-line stanzas. Brecht’s simple and direct tone betrays a lyric force and beauty that stems from and unfolds in an unadorned and episodic story-telling style that is never sentimental or callous.
Kinderkreuzzug is a dramatic cantata for children’s voices and small chamber ensemble including clarinet, string trio (violin, viola and cello), church hand bells and organ. The story is simple: in 1939, fifty war-orphaned children embark from Poland in search of a land of peace… Brecht’s socio-political commentary is as relevant today as when it was first published in 1941.
There is nothing new in the deprivation, want, suffering, and death Brecht profiles; nor is there any redemptive moral hidden in the lost innocence, dogged hope, and simple sincerity of this little band of children. They are neither martyrs nor goodwill heralds but simply orphans who are hungry and tired. Their plight and wretchedness is actually quite unremarkable and an all-too familiar tale as each generation from time past to time present bears witness to such pitiful crusades. Even hope has become ordinary. In fact, the only extraordinary outcome would be for these children to actually find a land of peace. Probable?
This music is written for the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of WWII. Brecht’s children still walk and suffer in our collective conscience. Although my music may not give bread, it may just harbor their hope, and ours, for the extraordinary.
-RYG
Born 1969 in Pfaffenhofen-an-der-Ilm, Germany, Ralf Yusuf Gawlick holds composition degrees from the University of California in Santa Barbara (B.M. cum laude), the University of Texas at Austin (M.M.) and the New England Conservatory of Music (D.M.A). Through noteworthy festivals, recordings, and commissions, his work has received both national and international recognition, including grants, fellowships and awards from the American Composers Orchestra, American Music Center, ASCAP, SCI, the Moniuszko Musical Society, the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Britten-on-the-Bay International Piano Composition Competition. Groups championing Mr. Gawlick’s works include the Slovak State Philharmonic, the Missouri Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), the American Composers Orchestra, The Civic Symphony Orchestra of Boston, Sinfonietta Polonia, the New England Conservatory Classical Orchestra, the Treble Chorus of New England, Youth Pro Musica, New York’s Music at the Anthology (MATA), Composers in Red Sneakers, Majestic Brass, the Hawthorne and Atma String Quartets, as well as numerous new music ensembles and distinguished soloists.
In 2003, Mr. Gawlick was the American selection at the 1st Festival of Contemporary Art in Kosice, Slovakia. Zrodlo, for soprano solo, mixed chorus and full orchestra, was commissioned in 2004 for the 25th anniversary of the visit of Pope John Paul II to Boston and the United States. The following year, his work At the still point of the turning world for solo violoncello was selected bythe Miami ISCM Section as one of six works sent to the 2005 World Music Days in Zagreb, Croatia, representing the United States. His compostional oeuvre includes solo, chamber, orchestral and choral music as well as music for a film documentary commemorating the 20th anniversary (2009) of the fall of the Berlin Wall, music commissioned by the German Embassy (Washington D.C.) and Boston College. The upcoming premiere of his cantata Kinderkreuzzug (children’s choir, chamber ensemble and organ) in April 2010 will be conducted by Valerie Becker. This work, written for the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of WWII, is supported by the German Consul General as well as the Goethe Institutes in Boston and Munich. Mr. Gawlick’s music, broadcast on American national public radio, is available on the Capstone label and Musica Omnia.
Ralf Yusuf Gawlick teaches at Boston College and his music is available through Brazinmusikanta Publications and the American Music Center. He lives in Newton, MA, with his wife Basia and their two children.
In the years following his 1933 escape from Nazi Germany, Bertolt Brecht penned some of his most extraordinary and grim anti-war poetry. This bitter, anti-war literary crusade finds one of its most poignant expressions in a ballad of thirty-five 4-line stanzas. Brecht’s simple and direct tone betrays a lyric force and beauty that stems from and unfolds in an unadorned and episodic story-telling style that is never sentimental or callous.
Kinderkreuzzug is a dramatic cantata for children’s voices and small chamber ensemble including clarinet, string trio (violin, viola and cello), church hand bells and organ. The story is simple: in 1939, fifty war-orphaned children embark from Poland in search of a land of peace… Brecht’s socio-political commentary is as relevant today as when it was first published in 1941.
There is nothing new in the deprivation, want, suffering, and death Brecht profiles; nor is there any redemptive moral hidden in the lost innocence, dogged hope, and simple sincerity of this little band of children. They are neither martyrs nor goodwill heralds but simply orphans who are hungry and tired. Their plight and wretchedness is actually quite unremarkable and an all-too familiar tale as each generation from time past to time present bears witness to such pitiful crusades. Even hope has become ordinary. In fact, the only extraordinary outcome would be for these children to actually find a land of peace. Probable?
This music is written for the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of WWII. Brecht’s children still walk and suffer in our collective conscience. Although my music may not give bread, it may just harbor their hope, and ours, for the extraordinary.
-RYG
Ralf Yusuf Gawlick
In 2003, Mr. Gawlick was the American selection at the 1st Festival of Contemporary Art in Kosice, Slovakia. Zrodlo, for soprano solo, mixed chorus and full orchestra, was commissioned in 2004 for the 25th anniversary of the visit of Pope John Paul II to Boston and the United States. The following year, his work At the still point of the turning world for solo violoncello was selected bythe Miami ISCM Section as one of six works sent to the 2005 World Music Days in Zagreb, Croatia, representing the United States. His compostional oeuvre includes solo, chamber, orchestral and choral music as well as music for a film documentary commemorating the 20th anniversary (2009) of the fall of the Berlin Wall, music commissioned by the German Embassy (Washington D.C.) and Boston College. The upcoming premiere of his cantata Kinderkreuzzug (children’s choir, chamber ensemble and organ) in April 2010 will be conducted by Valerie Becker. This work, written for the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of WWII, is supported by the German Consul General as well as the Goethe Institutes in Boston and Munich. Mr. Gawlick’s music, broadcast on American national public radio, is available on the Capstone label and Musica Omnia.
Ralf Yusuf Gawlick teaches at Boston College and his music is available through Brazinmusikanta Publications and the American Music Center. He lives in Newton, MA, with his wife Basia and their two children.
