Choose Life, Uvacharta Bachayim

Choose Life, Uvacharta Bachayim, is a dramatic oratorio by composer Mona Lyn Reese and librettist Delores Dufner OSB, that draws on Jewish and Christian music and scripture, as well as the writings of Holocaust survivors, to create an interfaith commemoration of the Holocaust. It was composed during Mona Lyn Reese's 1993-94 Faith Partners Residency sponsored by the American Composers' Forum and the Otto Bremer Foundation. Choose Life, Uvacharta Bachayim, has received national acclaim.
Overview.
Choose Life, Uvacharta Bachayim, is staged with costumes, scenery, and lighting; several numbers have also been choreographed for dance.
Many musical styles and sounds combine in the score. There are frequent musical references to Jewish tradition: The processional hymn and overture “O Holy One All-Wise”, uses the melody Leoni from the hymn “Yigdal”. The score includes the Jewish melody “Ani Ma'amin” in several places. The music of Adonai (God of Israel) and Lazar includes traditional Jewish modes and hymnody, recitative, and Klezmer music. Music in the Christian tradition such as Gregorian chant, polyphonic motets, Anglican Verse and Choral anthems also appear in the work.
Music and text express bitterness, anguish, and anger with God who permits tragedy, sorrow and need for comfort, the will to overcome evil, and determination to choose life over death. The six readings, found in "Siddur Sim Shalom" and "Gates of Prayer", are taken from memoirs, diaries, and reflections on the experience of the holocaust.
Several pieces in Choose Life, Uvacharta Bachayim are based on the Jewish text and melody “Ani Ma'amin”, a prayer for the dying. The Angel Choir sings both text and melody during the first reading (#4). The Angel Choir sings the text in “How Could I Forget You” (#14). Lazar sings the “Ani Ma'amin” melody in “In Your Likeness” (#16).
The text for “Stay With Me, God”, (#13) is from "Poems from the Desert", 1944; it was written by an anonymous member of the Eighth Army (United Kingdom).
The text of “How Could I Forget You”, and “Adonai” (#14 and #15) illustrates two Yom Kippur texts:
“To look away from evil: Is this not the sin of all ‘good’ people?” and “Let there be no forgetfulness before the Throne of Glory; let there be remembrance within the human heart.”
The following sung texts are direct quotations or paraphrases from the Hebrew Bible:
Instrumentation.
The oratorio is scored for the following orchestra and voices.
Notable performances and recordings.
Choose Life, Uvacharta Bachayim premiered at the Basilica of Saint Mary, Minneapolis (Teri Larson, Music Director) in 1994. The following year, the Otto Bremer Foundation gave Reese an additional grant to write a symphonic version which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1995. The symphonic version was performed by the Billings Symphony Orchestra & Chorale (Uri Barnea, Music Director) in 1996, and was also performed by the Basilica of Saint Mary, Minneapolis (Teri Larson, Music Director), as part of the “Basilica 2000” series.
In 2011, the San José Chamber Orchestra and Chorus released "Choose Life, Uvacharta Bachayim (album)", recorded at Skywalker Sound in Marin County, California.
In 2014, the San José Chamber Orchestra and Chorus performed a suite from "Choose Life, Uvacharta Bachayim" in the San José City Hall Rotunda.