Claire Burson to Perform at Holocaust Commemoration at WRT

Clare Burson, the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, will be the special guest on Friday, April 29, at 7:45 pm at Westchester Reform Temple (WRT) during their annual Service of Responsibility. This special service is a cherished WRT tradition to commemorate the Holocaust and urges the end of genocide in our time. Performer Clare Burson, joined by members of her band, Mark Spencer on guitar (from Son Volt), Tony Leone on drums (from Levon Helm), and Andy Cotton on bass, will join with the WRT community to remember the slain and honor the survivors.

Ms. Burson’s critically acclaimed album, Silver and Ash, imagines her grandmother's life in Germany, from her birth in 1919 to her escape in 1938. For this project, Burson visited her own childhood home in Memphis, where she conducted interviews with her grandmothers, and ventured to the childhood homes of her ancestors in Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Ukraine. The result of Burson’s travel, research, and ancestral archeology is a stunning album of 10 original songs that inhabit and give life to her grandmother’s story as well as Burson’s own struggles with rupture, silence, guilt, empathy, and continuity. The album was produced by Grammy® nominee Tucker Martine (R.E.M., The Decemberists), created with the help of her band, and was featured in The New York Times’ article “Channeling a Family’s Silence Into Songs About the Holocaust,” (September 20, 2010). Ms. Burson will be performing songs from this album during the evening.

This service, free and open to the public, will take place at Westchester Reform Temple, 255 Mamaroneck Road in Scarsdale. For more information, visit www.wrtemple.org , or call (914) 723-7727.