“Creed of Liberation” is a suite in three interconnected parts composed with the intention of identifying a preeminent narrative in Holocaust-era literature: liberation — the tantalizingly fluid concept thereof.  Excerpts from two poems by the author Alexander Kimel, “The Action in the Ghetto of Rohatyn, March 1942,” and “The Creed of a
Holocaust Survivor” are performed in tandem with intermittent iterations of the infamous Yom Kippur declaration, “Kol Nidre,” a statement of penance and subsequent rite of forgiveness. 

Both bodies of writing develop similarly — despite only one body being in true perception of the natural world.  As is common in the harrowing tales of genocidal literature, the tangible converges with the metaphysical, eventually resulting in an increasing obfuscation of cerebral affectations. In my suite, the disbarring of tonality is indicative of true liberation, at least conceptually —liberation that functions as the metaphysical marriage between worldly persecutions versus the spiritual sovereignty of Jewish scripture. 

With an apparent convergence of several pairs of objective dualities, this suite is composed for jazz rhythm section (piano, upright bass, and drum-set obbligato) and string quartet, joined by voice, constantly struggling between life and death, the two inevitable identities.