Honoring Ruth and Oscar Ravina
The family of Ruth and Oscar Ravina, in partnership with Montclair State University, invite you to join them for a special afternoon honoring their parents with a screening of “An Inconvenient Time” and a celebration of their legacy of music through the Ruth and Oscar Ravina Talent Grant.
Event Details:
When: Sunday, April 10
Time: 3:00 - 5:30 pm
Where: Montclair State University
Presentation Hall
School of Communication and Media
1 Normal Avenue, Montclair, NJ
If you have any questions, please contact Karen Hackett, Director of Development Events, at 973-655-4207 or hackettk@montclair.edu.
Parking is available in the Red Hawk Deck.
About the program:
As Ruth is celebrating her 85th birthday, there is no better time to tell her story of survival and resilience in facing the Holocaust. The award-winning documentary “An Inconvenient Time”, produced and directed by Denny Klein, explores the life story of Ruth, who was two years old when Germany invaded Poland in 1939 and lived through three concentration camps by the time she was seven years old.
Ruth and Oscar were a team. Oscar, who survived WWII in Soviet Russia, was encouraged to come to the US by Isaac Stern when Stern toured refugee camps. Oscar and Ruth met postwar in New York City at a benefit concert featuring recent emigree Jewish artists. They soon married, and Oscar, with Ruth’s relentless prodding, auditioned for and joined the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein and throughout their life together they traveled the world as Oscar played for presidents and princes in the US, Europe and Asia.
Oscar’s passion for music drove his desire to inspire young musicians and for more than 25 years, Oscar taught at Montclair State. Dr. Tamara Reps Freeman, the musicologist for the Association of Holocaust Organizations and a student of Oscar Ravina, will perform Oyfn Pripetshik (By the Fireplace), a piece of Holocaust music originally a kindergarten song which was reworked as a resistance ballad. Dr. Reps Freeman will be playing on her 1935 Joseph Bausch viola, a Holocaust relic.
Upon his passing and in his memory a fund was established to support future generations of young musicians We hope that you will consider a gift in support of the Ruth and Oscar Ravina Talent Grant to ensure that Oscar’s passion for teaching music continues. For the past 12 years, the Ruth and Oscar Ravina Talent Award enabled student musicians, sometimes first in their families to attend college, to breathe just a little easier and dedicate themselves fully to their craft, instead of worrying about the student debt they would face upon graduation.
We look forward to welcoming you to this celebration of strength, love and passion for music in the face of adversity.