“The people of Nuremberg I’ve met, especially the younger ones, are deeply committed that their city will not be known forever just as the site of Nazi rallies, anti-Jewish laws and war crime trials,” he said.
When he visited the city, Strimple stopped at the German National Museum, on whose granite columns are chiseled a declaration of human rights in many languages.
“The first language, at the very top, is Hebrew,” he explained.
Joining the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra in the two concerts, which will open with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, will be the Tel Aviv Chamber Choir and the Efroni Children’s Choir, the latter based near Haifa.
“It is arguably one of the best youth choirs in the world,” the conductor said.
Also joining in Bernstein’s Symphony No. 3, “Kaddish,” which premiered in 1964 in Israel, will be the Toronto Jewish Chamber Choir and four L.A. choral groups.
The combined choirs will also perform at the Musica Judaica Festival in Prague on Nov. 20, which will present selections of Jewish choral music from the Renaissance to the present.
Nuremberg’s Jewish community, 900 strong and growing, will also host a concert on Nov. 23, featuring Yiddish and Holocaust-themed music.
The entire Nuremberg experience, including rehearsals, the concerts and a view of the city’s past will be documented in a 90-minute television and educational film by Oscar-winner Delbert Mann.
Strimple, who has been working on the Nuremberg project since 1985, has become an authority on Holocaust-related music. A Presbyterian, he joins the choir of Valley Beth Shalom in Encino on the High Holy Days.
He recalls that while he was a youngster growing up in Amarillo, Texas, he first saw the famous Warsaw Ghetto photo of a small boy with cap, his arms raised and surrounded by armed Nazi soldiers.
“It struck me that the boy looked like my brother and that the woman behind him looked like my aunt,” said Strimple. “I really identified with these people.”
The $750,000 project in Nuremberg, and an earlier performance in L.A. are supported by three L.A.-based organizations, the Jewish Community Foundation, the Museum of the Holocaust and the Tel Aviv-Los Angeles Partnership of the Jewish Federation.