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Commissioned and performed for the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the State of Israel, this video of Noam Sheriff's Mechaye Hametim (Revival of the Dead) epitomizes Jewish life and aspirations in a powerful blend of carefully coordinated sounds and images. In successive movements the music evokes life in the Diaspora, then the horrors of the Holocaust; it prays for Holocaust victims and celebrates the foundation of Israel. Its primary audience will be Jewish, but some of the Hebrew texts may sound familiar to admirers of Handel's Messiah. Sheriff's score is eclectic, using motifs that recall cantorial styles (with tenor and baritone cantors), folk music, and the classic oratorio techniques of mainstream Western culture. Video images are powerfully matched to the music--symbols, landscapes, ancient buildings, flowers, children at play, marching soldiers, book-burning, freight trains, and concentration camps. --Joe McLellan
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