Hear the LAZC sing Shalom Aleichem by William Sharlin from our concert in Nuremberg

Our mission is to preserve, perform, and educate audiences in America and abroad about Jewish and Jewish-themed music -- with an emphasis on music written by Southern California composers.

Founded in 1997, Zimriyah performs in venues throughout Southern California and around the globe. LAZC is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. We raise funds to support our diverse activities through private donations and grants.

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Excerpt from the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles April 7, 2006, cover story "PASSOVER: Songs for a Swinging Seder" by George Robinson.

...The final entry in this year?s Pesach sweepstakes is a somber one, Max Helfman?s ?Di Naye Hagode? (Milken Archive/Naxos). Helfman?s oratorio is not, strictly speaking, a Passover commemoration in the strict sense of the word. Rather, it is a 1948 piece he wrote in memory of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which began on Passover in 1943. Using the seder as a structural armature on which to mount ?di naye hagode,? that is, ?the new telling,? Helfman wrote a frequently powerful, occasionally bombastic piece for choir, narrator and orchestra. This recording features particularly forceful contributions from the Choral Society of Southern California, the Los Angeles Zimriyah Chorale and narrator Theodore Bikel, who never succumbs to the temptation to ?emote,? wisely allowing Itzik Fefer?s stark, bleak text to do the hard work. The CD also features an effective rendition of Helfman?s ?Hag Habikkurim? and a surprisingly mournful ?The Holy Ark.? The result is one of the best releases in the Milken Archive series to date.