"Annelies" is a music event unlike perhaps any you've been to before. It's the story of Anne Frank, who hid from the Nazis with her family for three years in an Amsterdam attic. They were eventually found and all died in Bergen-Belsen concentration Camp.
Left behind though, was her diary, which revealed her intelligence and humanity in a particularly inhumane situation. It served as a catalyst for movies, and as San Antonio Mastersinger Chancey Blackburn explains, a piece of music.
"We are performing it at the Holzman Auditorium in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of Krystallnacht, which was that night in 1938 when Nazis destroyed about 1,000 synagogues and businesses and killed several Jews and took many to death camps," Blakcburn said.
Mastersingers Director John Silantien continued.
"There are several movements that describe Nazis coming into the house and looking around downstairs and you can hear the breathlessness of the eight residents upstairs, holding their breath hearing these footsteps downstairs," Silantien said.
D-Day didn’t come soon enough to save the Frank family, but they heard help was on the way.
"The final movement is just so optimistic," Silantien said. "It’s Anne’s meditation. She says that even in the toughest of times if I can go up to the loft and see the blue skies I feel pure."
The San Antonio Mastersingers perform "Annelies" on Sunday, November 10. Proceeds benefit the Holocaust Memorial Museum of San Antonio.
- Learn more about the group and performance at: www.samastersingers.org
