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Then Israeli jazz singer Noam Wolf, who has a voice Borowsky called “beautiful, dark and expressive,” spoke up. Wolf needed a hand negotiating one of the three songs the Bethlehem Hebrew Congregation had chosen for her to sing, so she reached out to Borowsky, who was happy to help.
The classical musicians agreed to accompany her in Bethlehem on Sunday, and to add a performance with her at Dartmouth College’s Roth Center for Jewish Life on Saturday night.
“I was OK with the song that’s in Hebrew and the one in English, but I was afraid I was going to stress out on … the one in Yiddish, which I don’t have much experience singing in public,” Wolf, 27, said on Tuesday during a telephone conversation from Manchester. “So I asked the people in Bethlehem if they could find a pianist with some experience. I needed a real pro.”
Borowsky, who moved to the Upper Valley in 2015 and teaches piano between tours, welcomed the challenge.
“The melodies and harmonies of all three songs could stand alone as inspirational music for our audience,” Borowsky wrote during an exchange of emails on Tuesday night, “but the context and the meaning of the lyrics make them a wonderful fit.”
Among the three songs that the Bethlehem synagogue had chosen for Wolf to perform was Rivkele, Israeli folk singer Chava Albertstein’s Yiddish adaptation of a World War II song in which a factory worker laments her son’s removal by the Nazis to a concentration camp.
“All my life, I heard it on the radio,” Wolf recalled. “Even if you don’t know the lyrics, people are going to understand. It’s very intense.”
Wolf is singing and teaching around the Granite State as a schlicha, an Israeli cultural emissary, to the Jewish Federation of New Hampshire. Traubas, whose parents fled Lithuania just ahead of the German invasion in 1940, has for the better part of 40 years championed Jewish music and culture in Lithuania, both as a scholar and a violinist touring Europe for solo performances and appearances with chamber ensembles. Since 2009, he has collaborated several times on performances with Borowsky and with Borowsky’s mother, brother and sister, all of them classical musicians.
“Music has a profound connection to human experience, and musicians can help their audience explore history through music in a powerful way,” Traubas said from Gettysburg, Pa., on Tuesday afternoon, with Borowsky’s father, Charles, translating. “I have been inspired by the Borowsky family’s mission, ‘Music: the Best Bridge for All People.’ Together we selected the program for this tour, and specifically chose works appropriate for honoring victims of the Holocaust and the Gulag.”
Wolf promises that she will offer a ray of hope by concluding each performance with Let There Be Peace on Earth, a song originally written for a California children’s choir in 1955 and since covered and adapted by musicians ranging from Vince Gill to Harry Connick Jr.
“This is a very close-to-my-heart subject,” Wolf said. “It’s really a high point to finish on.”
Lebanon pianist Elizabeth Borowsky, Lithuanian violinist Borisas Traubas and Israeli singer Noam Wolf perform music of Jewish and Lithuanian composers on Saturday night at 7, at the Roth Center for Jewish Life in Hanover. Admission is by donation. The trio also will appear during the Bethlethem (N.H.) Hebrew Congregation’s annual Holocaust remembrance service, on Sunday afternoon at 4.
Best Bets
The Parish Players stage William Luce’s The Last Flapper at the Eclipse Grange Theater on Thetford Hill over the next two weekends starting tonight at 7:30. For tickets ($10 to $15) and more information about the play, based on the letters of Zelda Fitzgerald, visit parishplayers.org or call 802-785-4344. Burlington artist Eleanor Lanahan, granddaughter of Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, will talk about her literary legacy after the Sunday afternoon performance.
Country singer Suzy Bogguss joins singer-guitarist Tommy Emmanuel in celebrating the release of Emmanuel’s new album, Accomplice One, on Friday night at 7:30 at the Lebanon Opera House. To reserve tickets ($40 to $65) and learn more, visit lebanonoperahouse.org or call 603-448-0400.
South Newbury, Vt., fiddler Patrick Ross plays a concert aimed at kids on Saturday morning from 11 to noon, at Oxbow High School in Bradford. Admission is free.
Comedians from Valley Improv perform at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon on Saturday night at 7, as a benefit for the social services provided by the church’s Open Door Ministry. Admission is by donation.
Soprano Julie Ness joins forces with pianist Annemieke McLane and accordionist Jeremiah McLane at the Upper Valley Music Center in Lebanon on Saturday night, to perform works of poets and composers from France’s Belle Epoque. The concert, which starts at 7:30, includes works of Debussy and Poulenc, as well as original compositions inspired by the period, and traditional French dance music. Admission is $15 at the door. To learn more, visit uvmusic.org.
Mixing song, dance and video projections, Anthony Hudson performs two shows of Looking for Tiger Lily, his send-up of Native American stereotypes, at Dartmouth College’s Bentley Theater next Thursday night at 7 and 9:30. For tickets ($25) and more information, visit hop.dartmouth.edu or call 603-646-2422.
Looking Ahead
Pentangle Arts will preview its production of the tribal-rock musical Hair next Thursday night at 7:30 in Woodstock’s Town Hall Theatre. This stage celebration of the late 1960s counterculture includes nudity, violence and references to sex and drugs. The show opens officially on April 20 and runs through April 29. For tickets ($10 to $20 for the preview, $25 to $40 for all other performances), visit pentanglearts.org or call 802-457-3981.
Theater/Performance Art
Northern Stage kicks off its interpretation of the Michael Frayn play-within-a-play farce Noises Off, with preview performances at the Barrette Center for the Arts in White River Junction at 7:30 tonight and Friday night. The play opens officially on Saturday night at 7:30, and runs through May 13. For tickets ($13.75 to $32.75 to the previews, $20 on April 17 and $13.75 to $57.75 on all other dates), visit northernstage.org or call 802-296-7000.
The Newport Opera House Association stages three performances of the musical comedy Once Upon a Mattress, starting Friday night at 7:30. Newport Winter Carnival Queen Alia Gonzalez plays the lead role of Princess Winnifred the Woebegone, in this adaptation of the fairy tale The Princess and the Pea. To reserve tickets and learn more, visit newportoperahouse.com or call 603-863-1412.
Music
Afro-Cuban diva Dayme Arocena sings at Dartmouth College’s Spaulding Auditorium tonight at 7. To reserve tickets ($17 to $30) for next Thursday’s show in Spaulding Auditorium, visit hop.dartmouth.edu or call 603-646-2422.
Canadian folk singer Garnet Rogers plays the Flying Goose Brewpub & Grille in New London tonight at 8. For tickets ($25) and more information, visit flyinggoose.com or call 603-526-6899.
Classicopia co-founder Daniel Weiser performs piano works of George Gershwin twice over the weekend, starting with a house concert on Saturday night at 7:30. And on Sunday afternoon at 2, Weiser commands the Steinway at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon. With limited seating for the house concert, tickets ($40) for Saturday’s performance must be reserved by visiting classicopia.org or calling 603-643-3337. Tickets at the door for Sunday’s show cost $10 for church members and $20 for all others; discounts for advance purchases are available at classicopia.org.
Australian singer-songwriter Mia Dyson leads her trio into Pierce’s Inn in Etna for set of rock and Americana, on Wednesday night at 7:30. For tickets ($35) and more information, visit piercesinn.com or call 603-643-2997.
Dance
Atlantic Crossing sets the rhythm and Woody Lane calls the steps for the Saturday night contra dance at Tracy Hall in Norwich. Dancing begins at 8, after a short run-through for new and rusty dancers. Admission is $6 to $10.
Bar and Club Circuit
Randy Miller and Roger Kahle host their weekly session of traditional Irish music at Salt hill Pub in Hanover tonight 6 to 9. Arthur James sings and plays the blues Friday from 9 to midnight, and The Squids perform soul, R&B and classic rock Saturday night at 9.
The Better Days Band covers classic rock hits of the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s at Salt hill Pub in downtown Lebanon on Saturday night starting at 9. Fiddler Roger Burridge and piper Anthony Santoro share their weekly session of traditional Irish music on Tuesday night from 6 to 9.
The Two Random Guys ensemble plays acoustic rock at Salt hill Pub in West Lebanon on Friday from 9 to midnight, and acoustic rocker Chris Powers appears Saturday night at 9.
The weekend lineup at Newport’s Salt hill Pub features bluesman John Lackard on Friday night at 9, and doses of the Newport’s Got Talent karaoke contest on Saturday, Sunday and Monday from 9 to midnight. Roger Kahle joins Randy Miller on Wednesday night at 6, for their weekly live session of traditional Irish music.
Sensible Shoes dares dancers to defy their fear of Friday the 13th starting at 9 that night at the Skunk Hollow Tavern in Hartland Four Corners.
Pianist Sonny Saul performs jazz at the On the River Inn in Woodstock on Saturday and Wednesday nights from 6:30 to 9.
Open Mics
Woodstock’s Jim Yeager hosts open mics on the following nights over the coming week: tonight at 7 at the ArtisTree Community Arts Center in South Pomfret; at Bentley’s Restaurant in Woodstock on Monday at 7:30; at the Public House in Quechee on Tuesday at 6; and on Wednesday from 8 to midnight at Skunk Hollow Tavern in Hartland Four Corners.
Ramunto’s Brick & Brew Pizza in Bridgewater hosts an open mic at 7:30 on Thursday nights. Participants get a free large cheese pizza.
String players of all ages and abilities are welcome at the weekly acoustic jam session at South Royalton’s BALE Commons on Friday night from 6:30 to 10.
Al Carruth and EJ Tretter host the Sunapee Community Coffeehouse’s monthly open mic on Friday night at 7, at the Methodist Church in Sunapee Harbor. Storytellers as well as singers are welcome.
Joe Stallsmith leads his weekly hootenanny of Americana, folk and bluegrass on Monday night at 6 at Salt hill Pub in Hanover.
Fiddler Jakob Breitbach leads a weekly acoustic jam session of bluegrass, Americana and old-timey music on Tuesday nights at 7 at The Filling Station Bar and Grill in White River Junction.
Tom Masterson hosts the weekly open mic at Bradford’s Colatina Exit on Tuesday nights at 8.
David Corriveau can be reached at dcorriveau@vnews.com and at 603-727-3304. Entertainment news can be submitted to highlights@vnews.com.