BWCC 2017 Spring Concert: GIVE ME YOUR TIRED, YOUR POOR

GIVE ME YOUR TIRED, YOUR POOR .... Irving Berlin (Imperial Russia 1888 – NYC 1989, aged 101) Emma Lazarus (NYC 1848 – NYC 1887, aged 38) performed by the Berkeley Women’s Community Chorus under direction of Debra Golata. The performance took place on Sunday, 2017 April 30 at Montclair Presbyterian Church in Oakland, CA.
=== following copied from the program ===


ALL SING:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
– From “The New Colossus”

The Statue of Liberty was not originally conceived as a symbol of immigration. The placement of the last part of Lazarus's sonnet “The New Colossus”, at the base of the monument in 1903, permanently gave Miss Liberty – "the Mother of Exiles' – her role. Lazarus was descended from America's first Jewish settlers who came in 1752. Ralph Waldo Emerson became her friend and mentor. It was a wave of particularly vicious anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe in the 1880s that inspired “The New Colossus”, her most powerful work. As many as 2,000 Russian Jewish refugees came to New York monthly – Berlin's family included. Berlin became one of the greatest songwriters in American history. This musical setting was written in 1949 for the Broadway musical Miss Liberty. Berlin emphasized his conviction saying, “it’s the lyrics that makes a song a hit, although the tune, of course, is what makes it last.”

Видео BWCC 2017 Spring Concert: GIVE ME YOUR TIRED, YOUR POOR канала Marek Jeziorek