Geraldine Auerbach · July 29, 2016

Obit from Geraldine at JMI
I had heard about this shocking tragedy of the deaths of Ronald Senator and Miriam Brickman in a fire at their home in Yonkers on April 30th and was in contact with Malcolm Miller and Malcolm Singer � but we were all at a loss to know who to speak to and commiserate with or send messages to. So I am glad to have the opportunity of sharing some thoughts and memories with members of this website and with you Jennifer Jankel, current Chair of JMI and Isabelle Ganz and also with Sylvia Lewin, Malcolm Weisman and Simon Campion and others who knew them in the UK about Miriam and Ronnie.
I am not sure how I first met Miriam and Ronnie � but they were pivotal to the first Bnai Brith Jewish Music Festivals that I organised in the early 1980s. Miriam was a real catalyst, putting � or pulling � ideas, people and programmes together in most creative ways that always led to something special and to lasting and developing relationships. She would always come up with something innovative and spectacular.
In the very first festival on 24 June 1984 she brought me a super chamber concert in the Purcell Room with herself on piano and Stanley and Naomi Drucker, clarinettists from the New York Phil and introduced me to her friends Sybil Michelow and Malcolm Williamson who had formed a piano and voice duo. The programmes were always exciting introducing new works of Jewish interest by new composers and as always, there were pieces by Ronnie Senator in the concert. (As you know Jennifer I am just now working with Sybil�s family to make a CD from a recording we made of works from that very concert).
For the following festival in 1986 Miriam suggested another exciting chamber concert at the Purcell Room � with Sybil again and Ronnie�s music and also bassoon and viola players from the Nash Ensemble. She also brought me something much more remarkable. It was Ronnie Senators �Kaddish for Terezin� a huge oratorio he had written in memory of his first wife who had been incarcerated in Auschwitz. It involved an orchestra and choir and children�s choir, a cantor and a narrator. Something much bigger than I had ever contemplated. But I thought it was important � and I was impressed by her enthusiasm and inspired to make it happen � in a special setting. Here Rev Malcolm Weisman came into his own; introducing me to the Director of CCJ, the wonderful Rev Marcus Braybrooke who immediately suggested it could be ideal for Canterbury Cathedral � and that he would broach the subject with the Dean with whom he was having lunch next day. It transpired that the Deanery in Canterbury had actually housed Jewish refugees � and that he had wanted a Holocaust memorial � but not a statue, so this just fitted the bill for him too.

That set the most amazing activities in motion. Malcolm Singer stepped up to the podium to provide and conduct the orchestra and choirs and had a friend with a superb children�s choir. I felt Rabbi Hugo Gryn, who himself had been in Terezin would be the ideal narrator and he accepted. Louis Berkman cantor of Belsize Square Synagogue � the synagogue created by Holocaust survivors and escapees was the soloist. So an amazing premi�re took place � broadcast live on BBC Radio London with interviews with Hugo and other survivors in the interval.
But that was not all. When Dr David Bloch, of Tel Aviv University, who was presenting a concert of Israeli contemporary music in the festival, heard about the Terezin Project, he suggested we invite two musicians, pianist Edith Kraus from Israel, and bass Karen Berman from the Prague National Opera, who had last performed together in Terezin. David was fast becoming a world expert in the extraordinary musical life of Terezin which was just then being recognised. He knew who and where they were and how to get hold of them. He suggested an amazing film of music in Terez�n for us to show and also suggested we invite Josa Karas who had just published a book about it. All of which we did.
And so it was that all day while Jewish choirs and a cantor and Rabbi rehearsed in Hebrew and blew a shofar in the Cathedral, the film was showing over and over in the school hall � and recitals (two of them) took place in the recital hall � which just happened to be the old Synagogue in Canterbury. Then after a reception in the Chapter House with the Archbishop of Canterbury the cathedral was filled with Jews and Christians listening to Ronald Senator�s Holocaust Oratorio. A film was made of the day focusing on Edith and Karel and shown on National TV on Remembrance Sunday of November 1986 � which also happened to be the commemoration of Kristallnacht. .
With this auspicious beginning, Miriam went on to have performances of Ronnie�s Kaddish for Terezin mounted in other special places such as St John the Devine in New York, the Vatican in Rome and in Terezin itself.
It was not only the heavy stuff. For the next Festival in 88 Miriam brought Klezmer to the UK. She introduced me to Giora Feidman the astonishing clarinettist who wowed London at the Logan Hall in 1988 and again in 1990 and in later festivals. In the �88 festival Miriam also put together yet another innovative chamber concert this time called Echoes of Jewish Poland at St John's, Smith Square with Sybil singing as well as Simon Fisher on Violin, Antonio Lysy on cello and Rivka Golani on viola � who premi�red Ronald Senator�s Dance Suite for viola solo.
It was also in 1988 that Miriam introduced me to Isabelle Ganz who delighted everyone with her group Alhambra in a concert of Sephardi Life Cycle songs at the Almeida Theatre and presented the delightful Sacred and Secular music of the Sephardi Jews at the Purcell Room, Supported by Nitza and Robin Spiro.
It was always exciting to be in the presence of Miriam and Ronnie. She was so enthusiastic and brimming over with ideas and suggestions that were helpful to all. There were other connections and we were also pleased to share more personal moments with them like being at their wedding, the launches of Ronnie�s books and other meetings.
Miriam Brickman and Ronnie Senator brought true riches in Jewish music and musicians to greatly enhance the Bnai Brith Jewish Music Festivals and thus Jewish music in the UK. The last time that Miriam and Ronnie were with us I think was at the Bloch Conference in Cambridge in 2007 where she performed in the concert.
They were always together � flitting between homes in London and New York � often caging a lift on the QE2 where Miriam would entertain on the piano and Ronnie give lectures that enthralled the passengers. He was 89 and Miriam 81. Their health was failing. Despite this shocking news of the fire at their home, there may be something comforting or poignant that in their last moments they were also as one, and like Elijah were taken together up to heaven in a fiery embrace. Always innovative and spectacular.
Geraldine Auerbach MBE
Former Director of the Jewish Music Institute
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

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Robert Nissim · June 24, 2015

Ronald was a true Renaissance Man. He could talk on any subject, from Cosmology to Musicology, and was a formidable intellectual force. Miriam was an exquisite pianist. He and Miriam were a unique couple, taking musical artistry wherever they went. I miss them greatly.

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