TANNERSVILLE — In the three years since jazz pianist Liz Magnes and her photographer husband visited the Spanish city of Guernica, Ms. Magnes has been writing a stirring composition for piano which she will perform beginning at 5 pm on Wednesday, Nov. 18 at the Mountaintop Library, 6093 Main Street, Tannersville. The admission-free performance will include readings of poetry in the multi-format event intended as a cry for world peace.

The city of Guernica was caught up in the Spanish Civil war. Carpet bombed by the Germans on April 26, 1937, the massacre killed or wounded one-third of Guernica’s 5,000 inhabitants. The devastating horror was later depicted in a world-famous painting “Guernica,” by Pablo Picasso The fate of Guernica is considered as one of history’s first anti-civilian bombings. In a scene described in one of the poems to be read at the Tannersville event, Picasso’s painting shows a woman screaming as she has been bombed.

Ms. Magnes draws pointed connections between the bombing of Guernica and the more recent bombings of Gaza: “As an activist, a Jew , an Israeli and American citizen , my heart has been sinking since the destruction and devastation of Gaza, perpetrated by the two countries of which I can claim citizenship. My shame has been a call to action. Guernica-Gernika was in the making. The seeds were being sown.”

She continues: “I never know but always hope that my music will touch the heart and soul of the listener. . …. for me, when I play the music--even with my eyes closed sometimes, . for me, when I play the music , even with my eyes closed sometimes , my hope is that the listeners are taken into my world of sounds and passion.”

Liz Magnes added that her friend and colleague, the celebrated stage and film actress Kathleen Chalfant "got Guernica-Gernika off to an impassioned start by suggesting that she and I do a home performance last autumn for the cultural project “Fall of Freedom”. Kathleen is now on Broadway at the Barrymore Theatre in “Here there are Blueberries”, and her friend and wonderful actress Suzanne Hayes Kelly will be reading the English text in the performance”

“The music begins in the bowels of the piano, on the strings; I’m plucking the melody of the lullaby. Melodious and elevated, the lullaby flows through the world of dreams.”

From

Ode to the children of Madrid who were killed by shrapnel

By Vincent Aleixandre 1937

Translated and read in performance by Henry Chalfant

“…That voice of the victims, broken in their throats, that erupts in the city.

Like a moan

We all hear it

The children have screamed

Their voices are ringing

Don’t you hear? They’re ringing in the dark.

They’re ringing in the light, they’re ringing in the streets

All the houses scream.

You pass by, and from that broken window comes a cry of death.”

States Jacqueline Elmo-Emel, librarian at the the Mountaintop Library, “This promises tp be a powerful performance. We are so honored to have it take place in our community, and in our space.”

Alan Adelson

Films for Humanity

917-864-2749

alanadelson@gmail.com