OCT-02-2006 12:37

FROM HAK DC OFFICE

TO THERESA OFC

Jutta Czurda & Sevan Minasian

1747 Broadway, San Francisco, CA 94109
Tel 415 441-2222

Email: juttaczurda@hotmail.com

Nürbergerstrasse 115, 90762 Fürth
Tel 49 911-7098997

Dear Mr. Kissinger,

Allow me to introduce myself; my name is Jutta Czurda. I am the singer in this evening's performance and I also directed this program.

I am writing to you personally because I noticed, to my delight, in looking over the mailing list, that you live in Washington Heights, where my husband grew up and where his parents lived for over 50 years in the same apartment at 183 Pinehurst Avenue. My husband is in his 65th year and we now live between Fürth and San Francisco. His parents are gone, more than 20 years now, but you can imagine that the neighborhood holds tremendous associations for him. Sometimes, on our frequent visits to New York, we take the A-Train to the 181 Street Station, come out at 184th, cross Fort Washington Avenue and go through the little park opposite (Bennett Park) on our way to Pinchurst Avenue. My husband never fails to point out the rock in the center of the park, to others, the highest point in Manhattan, but to him the rock with a crevice in which he played as a child. His ghosts whisper behind the walls of these streets. It is perhaps more than a coincidence that my husband, walking through the streets of Fürth, has remarked that *there* the stonewalls weep.

The newspaper stand next to the subway entrance is gone. Gideon's Bakery near the stairs going down to Broadway is gone, Gristede's at the end of Pinehurst is gone and many of the immigrant families, the German Jews, the Irish, and the Armenians have been replaced by the next wave of immigrants or just young people looking for a nice neighborhood to settle in....this is the wonder of America.

We walk up Pinehurst to the end where it meets the other little streets and then up Cabrini into Fort Tryon Park. The sign reminding us to respect the flower garden, memorized as a child; "Let no one say, and say it to your shame, that all was beauty here until you came". The benches overlooking the flower garden and the prospect where on week-ends 50 years ago, half a century ago, families would promenade, dressed in hat and gloves, in Sunday best, in the old tradition.

I know it would be a tremendous pleasure for my husband and certainly for me to meet you, if you would make yourself known to us after the performance.

Sevan Minasian

OCT-02-2006 12:37

FROM HAK DC OFFICE

TO THERESA OFC

# Lonely House

Jutta Czurda sings Kurt Weill
a production of Stadttheater Fürth, Germany

Directors: Jutta Czurda and Thomas Reher

Musical Director and Arrangements: Richie Beirach
Richie Beirach (Piano), Gregor Hübner (Violine) and Veit Hübner (Bass)

The Singer-Choreographer-Actress Jutta Czurda invites you to an evening to acquaint you with a less well-known side of Kurt Weill. After her extremely successful Brecht Concert, one distinguished with the prestigious Bayerischen Theaterpreis, the singer now devotes herself to Weill, the composer who in act of scoring "The Three Penny Opera" and "The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagony", invented a style of music tailored to Brecht's text.

However Jutta Czurda's gaze fall not on the widely known fruit of Weill's collaboration with Bert Brecht, as with "The Ballad of Mack the Knife" or "Pirate Jenny", she wishes, rather, to explore the composers work in exile. Thus, she dedicates the first part of the present program to Chansons that Weill composed during his time in France, songs in which the French musical palette is clearly to be heard. The second part concerns itself with the American Weill, the Weill who composed numerous musicals for the Broadway stage, such as "Lost in the Stars" and "Knickerbocker Holiday".

Musically Jutta Czurda is supported by the legendary New York jazz great, Richie Beirach, who has participated in approximately 250 CD recordings, and, known for his quite individual interpretations of Bartók or Monteverdi, proves that he can dust off the Classics with exciting new arrangements. Beirach on the piano, the brothers Gregor and Veit Hübner on the violin and bass respectively and Jutta Czurda's voice promise an extraordinary encounter with Kurt Weill.

## Sample Reviews – "Lonely House"

"To make a long story short: There came a moment in the evening in which Jutta Czurda was simply world-class, something in the otherworldly beautiful Hebrew folksong "Ba'a M'nucha" or in the Chanson "Youkall". It was not a given that Jutta Czurda, rather a crossover to singing, after her rightly celebrated Brecht-Weill-Program, would advance still further and to such an extent. And specifically her voice: one simply must experience with what nuance, expression and finesse she embodied these songs, how she bestowed dimension upon them with her whole body, for example in the stunning "Song of the Rhineland". Czurda sought a challenge and found it in Richie Beirach, the pianist with the prodigious left hand, and his first-rate duo, the violinist Gregor Hübner and the bassist Viet Hübner. With nearly the sure-footedness of a somnambulist the quartet threaded its way to profoundly individual new interpretations, which, without a hint of nostalgia, nevertheless allowed immense tonal colour and imparted power and blossom to every song. Without fail, see it, hear it!

(Plaerrer, city-magazin, April 2005)

There were moments when Richie Beirach, Gregor Huebner and Veit Huebner's ensemble work accompanying Jutta Czurda took ones breath away. Up to the end there was precious space for brilliant solos that showed the trio on a par with the expressive and wide-ranging, gesture-steeped singing of the wonderful Jutta Czurda."

(Neue Presse Coburg, March, 9th 2005)