Seton Hill University’s National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education will host a concert featuring music suppressed during the Holocaust on Sunday, October 25, at 4 p.m. in the Carol Ann Reichgut Concert Hall in Seton Hill University’s Performing Arts Center, located at the corner of Harrison Avenue and Otterman Street in Greensburg, Pa. The concert, “Music Reborn: Forbidden and Forgotten” is part of the Ethel LeFrak Holocaust Education Conference taking place at Seton Hill October 25-27, 2009. This concert is open to the public and there is no charge to attend. To register, call 724-830-1855. For conference details, visit http://ncche.setonhill.edu.

Nancy Rubenstein Messham, artistic director of the Music Reborn Project in Pittsburgh, Pa., will produce and direct a unique performance composed of music suppressed by the Third Reich as well as a segment of music from the camps, most notably Terezin. The concert will feature guest artists performing with Seton Hill University faculty and students.

Rubenstein Messham began her piano studies at the age of three. She obtained her undergraduate degree in music education and her Master of Music degree in piano pedagogy from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
As founder and director of the Music Reborn Project, she has researched composers whose lives were affected by the reign of the Nazis, collected rare scores and organized concerts in Pennsylvania and Florida since 2003.

Music Reborn is dedicated to the preservation and performance of Entartete Musik, or “degenerate music,” a term used by the Nazis to describe forms of music they considered decadent or objectionable. The purpose of Music Reborn is to preserve the legacy of a generation of lost European composers whose lives, and livelihoods, were destroyed. Through research and public performances hosted by Music Reborn, audiences are now able to come to know a few of the composers by hearing their works and learning about their lives.

The Ethel LeFrak Holocaust Education Conference seeks to enhance Catholic-Jewish understanding by educating the educators. The Conference will equip teachers and faculty members, especially those at Catholic institutions, to enter into serious discussions on the causes of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, and to write and deliver papers that shape appropriate curricular responses at Catholic institutions and other educational sites.

The 2009 Holocaust Education Conference at Seton Hill is made possible by benefactor Ethel LeFrak. In 2008, LeFrak, a noted New York philanthropist, made a $750,000 donation to Seton Hill University’s National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education to endow The Ethel LeFrak Holocaust Education Conference and create The Ethel LeFrak Student Scholars of the Holocaust Fund.

A graduate and trustee of Barnard College, Ethel LeFrak has been active as a trustee or member of the board of directors for many cultural, philanthropic, educational and medical institutions, including serving as a trustee of the Cardozo Law School, vice president of the Little Orchestra Society, trustee of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, trustee of the Albert Einstein Medical College, and patron of the Asia Society.

A member of the Metropolitan Opera’s “Golden Horseshoe” and “Opera Club,” LeFrak also has been a patron of Lincoln Center, a conservator of the New York Public Library, a member of the Council of the Salk Institute, and a member of the Board of the United Nations International Hospitality Committee, which was instrumental in having her and her husband, the late Dr. Samuel J. LeFrak, honored with the United Nations’ “Distinguished Citizens of the World” Award in 1994.

In 1996, LeFrak was awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, from Seton Hill.

With her husband, LeFrak co-authored two books on their family art collection, “Masters of the Modern Tradition” and “A Passion for Art.” The LeFrak collection has been hailed by Art and Antiques magazine as being one of America’s top 100 collections.

The National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education (NCCHE) was established on the campus of Seton Hill University in 1987. Seton Hill initiated this national Catholic movement toward Holocaust studies in response to the urging of Pope John Paul II to recognize the significance of the Shoah, the Holocaust, and to "promote the necessary historical and religious studies on this event which concerns the whole of humanity today." The NCCHE has as its primary purpose the broad dissemination of scholarship on the root causes of anti-Semitism, its relation to the Holocaust, and the implications from the Catholic perspective of both for today's world. Toward this end the Center is committed to equipping scholars, especially those at Catholic institutions, to enter into serious discussion on the causes of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust; shaping appropriate curricular responses at Catholic institutions and other educational sites; sustaining Seton Hill's Catholic Institute for Holocaust Studies in Israel through a cooperative program with Yad Vashem, the Isaac Jacob Institute for Religious Law, and Hebrew University; encouraging scholarship and research through conferences, publications, workshops for educators, and similar activities; sponsoring local events on the Holocaust and related topics in the University and the community, and enhancing Catholic-Jewish relations.