IRON & COAL
Photo: Jill Steinberg
CREATIVE TEAM
composed, created, and performed JEREMY SCHONFELD
Direction KEVIN NEWBURY | Music direction and arrangements DAVID BLOOM
Projection design S KATY TUCKER | Video engineering PAUL VERSHBOW
Animation design TOM SELTZER | Movement NATALIE LOMONTE
Featuring JEREMY SCHONFELD, RINDE ECKERT, DANIEL ROWAN and CONTEMPORANEOUS
World Premiere at Strathmore featured:
Alexandria Harmonizers, Maryland Classic Youth Orchestras of Strathmore, Young Artists of America, and Strathmore Children’s Chorus
TRAILER
2020
GERALD W LYNCH THEATER AT JOHN JAY COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE - PROTOTYPE FESTIVAL
January 10-11, 2020
INFO AT prototypefestival.org
ABOUT
IRON & COAL is a powerful and personal rock-opera by critically acclaimed composer and performer Jeremy Schonfeld. Taking inspiration from his father Gustav’s memoir “Absence of Closure,” Schonfeld traces his father’s attempts to create a life out of the ashes having A searing rock-opera, Iron & Coal zeros in on the relationship between a father and son in the shadow of the Holocaust. Taking inspiration from his father, an Auschwitz survivor, composer Jeremy Schonfeld weaves together his personal experiences with excerpts from his father’s memoir “Absence of Closure.” The ghosts of a vanished world mix with the present, brought to life through animation, a rock band, an orchestra, and multigenerational choruses, to celebrate the indomitable spirit of our ancestors and the legacy we carry with us.spent a year in Auschwitz in 1944-45 at the age of ten. Having been one of the few survivors along with his family, Gustav was saved because of his father’s work as a doctor. Schonfeld weaves memories of his own early childhood and his own coming to terms with the death of his father Gustav and with the birth of his own son. The ghosts of a distant and vanished world, both of horror and the iron will to survive, mix with the present in this truly remarkable concept album that will now be brought to life on stage using animation, projections, a band, youth chorus, and youth orchestra to celebrate the indomitable spirit of our ancestors and the legacy we carry with us.
SUPPORT
Commissioned and developed by Strathmore and Beth Morrison Projects. With support from Peter Boker, Heidi Farkash, The Dr. David M. Milch Foundation, Joshua Schonfeld and Jill Steinberg.
The PROTOTYPE presentation of this project was made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and by public funds from The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.