This is a solo improvisational suite based on a 1938 letter from my cousin Richard in Budweis (České Budějovice, in the Bohemian region of Czechoslovakia) to his aunt Karoline in St. Louis. Richard was transported to Terezín in 1942 and murdered in an unknown concentration camp from there. Nearly all of the rest of my family in and around Czechoslovakia suffered the same fate. Richard’s son Fritz, mentioned in the letter as just about to enter the military, tried to emigrate to the United States but couldn’t because of “bureaucratic red tape,” in the words of my cousin Harry, who did most of our genealogy. Fritz was transported to Terezín in 1943 and from there was sent to Auschwitz where, of course, he was killed. I like to think that Richard and Fritz were at least together in Terezín.

The lives and deaths of my family in Central Europe are like shadows to me. This letter haunts me. I still know so little about these people, or what our lives as Jews were like in Europe for centuries. They don’t even live in our folklore. I relate to them.

My other interlocuter for “Bohemian Shadows” is Stefan Wolpe, another echo of our Central European Jewish past. I relate to him too. He was an expressive experimentalist, but not bound to any style or school. He had an absurdist streak. He was a Marxist and anti-fascist. He had a broad view of the world, he was endlessly curious, and he was a refugee. I’m glad he got out of Europe. I just found out he's buried in the county where I live. I think about him a lot. For this piece, I improvised in response to his Oboe Quartet (1954), which I love.

(click individual tracks for translations)