Temple Concord has rescheduled the Meditative Music program originally to have taken place on Yom Kippur. It will now be held on Friday, November 10, at 8:30 pm, in the Kilmer Mansion following the 7:30 pm Shabbat services and oneg. The concert will be in honor of Veterans Day and in memory of Brendan Byrnes, husband off Hollie Levine. It is open to the entire community.
Musicians Margaret “Pej” Reitz (piano), Hakan Tayga (violoncello) and Sarah Gerk (clarinet) will perform compositions by J.S. Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Jean Sibelius, Maurice Ravel, Frederic Chopin, Camille Saint-Saens and Johannes Brahms.
Reitz is a native of the Binghamton area. She is currently on the faculty of Binghamton University, Ithaca College School of Music and SUNY Broome. She performed as an accompanist throughout the United States, in England, South America, Spain and at the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria. Reitz has been a guest artist with the Temple Concord Artist Series in the Kilmer Mansion. She has been the Temple Concord Meditative Music pianist since the program began nearly 25 years ago.
Tayga is principal cellist of the Binghamton Philharmonic and a founding member of the Parlor City Celli. A native of Binghamton, Tayga has performed with many regional arts organizations, including the Tri-Cities Opera, Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, Catskill Symphony, the Syracuse Symphony, the Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes and the Ensemble Concord at the Kilmer Mansion.
Gerk is assistant professor of musicology at Binghamton University. She studied clarinet with Yehuda Gilad at the Colburn School, and has taught at Oberlin College and Conservatory, University of Michigan and California State University, Long Beach. She researches 19th century American music, and is an active flute and whistle performer in Irish traditional music.