About the Minnesota Sinfonia’s Collaboration with Violins of Hope
The Minnesota Sinfonia’s Farewell Concerts of October, 2024 were meant to be the orchestra’s last public performances. The plan was to perform those concerts and then spend down Sinfonia’s reserves by offering Music in the Schools (MIS) to sixteen public elementary schools and creating an in-studio video recording of the MIS program. In the interim, Artistic Director Jay Fishman was approached by Jewish Community Center Minnesota (JCC) regarding Violins of Hope. The JCC invited the Minnesota Sinfonia to be a part of the Violins of Hope, which will be touring through Minnesota in May and June 2026. Violins of Hope is a collection of string instruments that were owned by Jewish musicians, many of whom perished in the Holocaust.
In collaboration with the JCC, Jay and the Minnesota Sinfonia are partnering with five area churches and colleges to present a series of concerts with Sinfonia musicians performing on some of the violins in this remarkable and historical collection. These performances are being presented with no religious affiliation, but rather a chance to share in history. The Minnesota Sinfonia Board is pleased to utilize our remaining funds to bring these historical performances to the Twin Cities community.
The concert programs will feature Jewish-themed music honoring the millions of Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust. The quartet program will include music by Viktor Ullmann, Henriëtte Bosmans and Felix Mendelssohn. The Sinfonia orchestra concert program will include Sergei Prokofiev’s Overture on Hebrew Themes, Max Bruch’s Kol Nidrei, Hassidic Suite by Joachim Stutschewsky, and Ernest Bloch’s Concerto Grosso No. 1. Cellist Amit Peled will be the featured soloist on the Kol Nidrei and Hassidic Suite, and he will be playing on a cello from the Violins of Hope collection.
As with all Minnesota Sinfonia programs, these concerts will be free of admission charges. Children are welcome and their attendance encouraged.
For details about the Violins of Hope instrument collection, visit Violins of Hope.
For information about all Violins of Hope events in Minnesota, visit Violins of Hope – Minnesota JCC.
For information about Minnesota Sinfonia concert dates and locations, visit Minnesota Sinfonia Violins of Hope concert dates.
Closing an organization that has been performing for 37 years, and that has presented over 1,500 free-admission concerts (all of which welcomed children!), is a gargantuan undertaking. The plan is to perform this set of Violins of Hope concerts in June, and officially close the organization on September 30, 2026, which is the end of the orchestra’s fiscal year.
Before officially closing the doors, the Minnesota Sinfonia has two major tasks. First is the question of what to do with the music library. For over 50 years, Jay has been collecting and arranging music for the Sinfonia, and before that for the old Minneapolis Chamber Symphony, and before that for the Louisville Chamber Orchestra. This was his lifetime commitment to collecting and lending music to the orchestras he conducted. The collection is made up of hundreds of symphonies, concertos, overtures and new works, ranging from the music of Bach, Corelli and Handel to Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, to the romantics of Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Dvořák, and to music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including over 50 Minnesota Sinfonia and Minneapolis Chamber Symphony commissions. This task was completed when Jay decided to donate the library to the Minnesota Youth Symphonies, with the proviso that the music will be made available free of charge to area orchestras and schools.
The second task is what to do with the four Music in the Schools full length in-studio video recordings: The Magical Mysteries of Math and Music; Water, Our Most Precious Resource; Music Tells a Story; and Introducing the Orchestra – the Science Behind the Sound. These videos are of Sinfonia’s Music in the Schools programs and were created to be distributed to schools and families free of charge throughout the state, and hopefully nationally as well. The Sinfonia is now creating a special educational YouTube channel that will contain these four videos. A promotional campaign to make these videos accessible is starting soon — if you are interested in helping, contact the Sinfonia at (612) 871-1701 or mnsinfonia@mnsinfonia.org.
The Minnesota Sinfonia Board of Directors is very proud of the Sinfonia’s work throughout the region, and that it was able to perform and work with literally thousands and thousands of our community’s children. This was an honor and a privilege. Thank you for helping us make the orchestra truly a one-of-a-kind organization that was and remains dedicated to artistic excellence and community service.
