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Photo of Alison Loeb by Linnea Sauter, graphic by Sam Guncler
A lyricist must have an ear for melody and a mind for words. But what happens when a lyricist also has a heart open to stories?
When Alison Loeb heard her telephone repairman’s stories, the beginnings of a musical concert began to take shape in her imagination.
In 1998 Loeb’s phone stopped working. As he tried to get Loeb’s dial tone back, Eddie, the repairman, started telling Loeb stories about German Jews who moved to the neighborhood in the 1930s and 1940s.
Eddie asked Loeb if she had ever heard Felix Mendelssohn’s piano solos, Songs without Words. Loeb said she hadn’t and, with Eddie’s prompting, she began researched them.
Mendelssohn, a Jew, lived from 1804-1847 and his work was highly celebrated in Germany for a century. However, during the rise of the Nazis, his work was credited to other composers or ignored. His reputation as one of the world’s premier composers has yet to be fully restored.
Loeb decided to set the stories she heard of German Jews moving to Washington Heights to Songs without Words.
Loeb spread the word about her project among friends, and slowly but surely for the next 10 years, people from the neighborhood began coming forward with stories.
While the production focuses on the stories of German Jews, Loeb interweaves the stories with other “characters” present in the neighborhood at the time. Loeb’s character Richie is an American-born Catholic who gives special insight into the story. As someone born and raised in Washington Heights, he was clearly an outsider to Jewish German culture. However, as someone sharing the same small space in the neighborhood, he becomes thoroughly enmeshed in neighborhood life. A simultaneous insider and outsider of sorts.
“It’s really about, how do you go on living your life when the unimaginable happens,” said Loeb.
While one performance is currently scheduled, Loeb hopes that there will be follow-up performances in other venues.
“MendelsSongs” is supported by 150 people and businesses, including the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance, the Medical Center Neighborhood Fund, the Hudson Heights Owners Coalition, the Puffin Foundation, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the YM&YWHA.
“MendelsSongs, Stories of a Neighborhood,” will be performed Sun., Nov. 7, at 3 p.m., at Hebrew Tabernacle, 551 Fort Washington Ave. There is a suggested donation of $10. For more information visit www.mendelssongs.com or call 347-879-0809.
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