The British Invasion Tribute Returning to East Brunswick on Oct. 23 for free Daniel Pearl World Music Days Concert
The British Invasion Tribute, which played to a huge crowd as part of East Brunswick’s summer concert series at the Community Arts Center, will come back to town on Thursday, Oct. 23 for a free concert as part of Daniel Pearl World Music Days. The concert will be hosted by Temple B’nai Shalom, Fern and Old Stage Roads, in East Brunswick, beginning at 7:30.
Daniel Pearl World Music Days was created in response to the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl at the hands of extremists in Karachi, Pakistan. Pearl was a talented musician who joined musical groups in every community in which he lived, leaving behind a long trail of musician-friends spanning the entire globe. Commemorating his October 10th birthday, World Music Days uses the universal language of music to encourage fellowship across cultures and build a platform of “harmony for humanity.”
East Brunswick is home to the Daniel Pearl Education Center (DPEC), a non-profit, charitable organization committed to the ideals of understanding and community. The DPEC sponsors a number of area programs and activities, including an annual trip to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum for Temple B’nai Shalom’s Bar/Bat Mitzvah class, the eighth grade class at East Brunswick’s St. Bartholomew’s parochial school, and other youth groups; Daniel Pearl scholarships to graduating seniors at East Brunswick High School; teacher training workshops; a speaker series; and much more. The appearance by The British Invasion Tribute marks the 10th free concert hosted by the DPEC.
“I attended the summer concert and was blown away by the talents of The British Invasion Tribute,” said Andy Boyarsky, chair of the DPEC. “I spoke with the band members after the concert, invited them to come back to town for a Daniel Pearl World Music Days concert, and they enthusiastically said yes. They immediately understood the importance of World Music Days, a celebration of harmony through music, and they were very excited to participate.”
“We have hosted these free concerts more than 10 years, but truth is, we anticipate that this will be the biggest concert ever. This is an amazing band, and they put on an incredible show. And unlike the Community Arts Center in East Brunswick, we have limited seating for our concert. So we encourage everyone to RSVP as soon as possible.”
The British Invasion Tribute has performed all over the country and has shared the stage with legendary recording artists such as The Beach Boys, Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band and Herman’s Hermits. The band performs a number of Beatles songs, as well as classic songs from iconic British groups such as The Zombies, The Moody Blues, Dave Clark Five and Herman’s Hermits. The band then adds an “American musical response,” with memorable hits by celebrated artists such as The Monkees, The Turtles, The Mamas & The Papas, and Tommy James & The Shondells.
Bassist Bobby M. originally formed the band in 1995 ago along with guitarist Lee Scott Howard and drummer Jeff Alai. The group quickly gained popularity performing note-for-note Classic Rock tribute shows. During this time, the band also released two critically acclaimed albums, Don’t Quit Your Day Job and Horizontal Hold on Dockside Music Records. Several years later, the trio decided to focus solely on the music they all loved growing up. Rather than simply paying tribute to just one artist, they expanded the show to include 1960s Pop and Rock hits from both sides of the Atlantic. With the addition of keyboardist/guitarist Jon Wolf in 2004, the lineup was completed.
“These musicians are so talented,” Boyarsky said. “If you close your eyes and just listen, you could swear you’re hearing the originals. They’re also great showmen, and they put on a very memorable and enjoyable concert.”
While the concert is free to the community, seating is limited. Please send your reservation name with number of seats requested to: office@bnaishalom.com. Please send any additional inquiries to rbrenowitz1@aol.com.
2010 — MDs, PhDs to perform at Daniel Pearl World Music Days celebration at Temple B’nai Shalom
Free annual concert in East Brunswick to honor slain Wall Street Journal reporter’s commitment to understanding and community
It’ll be a night of dueling doctors, sort of, when AlterEgo, a band of MDs from Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, and The Professors, a band of PhDs from Rutgers University, perform a free concert on Thursday, Oct. 22 as part of the Daniel Pearl World Music Days celebration at Temple B’nai Shalom in East Brunswick.
The concert, which will begin at 8 p.m., will mark the sixth straight year that the Daniel Pearl Education Center committee at Temple B’nai Shalom has hosted a free concert as part of Daniel Pearl World Music Days, an international celebration marking the contributions to community and understanding of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was murdered by extremists while researching a story in Pakistan in 2002.
“This is always a very special and emotional night for us at the Daniel Pearl Education Center,” said Dr. Andrew Boyarsky, chairman of the center’s committee. “While we all love the joy that music provides and the way it brings people together for a concert, it is difficult for us to forget the tragedy of Daniel’s violent death. He stood for community and understanding and, as an accomplished violinist, for bring cultures and people together through music. We remember him and honor him on this night and join with musicians around the world in celebrating Daniel Pearl World Music Days.”
In recent years, the Daniel Pearl Education Center has brought eclectic music to the stage at Temple B’nai Shalom for Daniel Pearl World Music Days. Among the performers and styles of music were Brazilian jazz, classical music and klezmer. This concert will have all the excitement of past concerts, with the added twist of a bit of a friendly rivalry between the two sets of doctors.
“I’m not sure where my allegiance will rest,” Boyarsky said. “As a surgeon, I obviously have a rooting interest for the MDs. But I’m also a clinical professor of medicine, so I have a special place in my heart for the PhDs. This should be a lot of fun — great music for a great cause.”
AlterEgo got its start back in 1997 when nephrologist Andy Covit pulled together an infectious disease specialist, Rick Snepar, a gastroenterologist, a cardiac surgeon, and a biochemistry MD-PhD student to work on five songs that the band would play at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital’s “Physicians and their Art” performance night that fall. Today the band — made up of Covit, Snepar, Elio Diaz, Pat Gainey, Lou Perillo, Phil Mach, and Michael Sadowsky — perform regularly at live music bar venues throughout Central Jersey. The band’s music covers all genres of rock and roll, from the 50s through to selection on the charts today.
“We really get a kick out of playing a set with a great old Buffalo Springfield song followed immediately by a new one from the Kings of Leon,” Covit says. “And though we play some of the typical bar band standards, we also love to surprise those listening with some of our more eclectic tunes from artists like Bob Marley, Guster or the Ides of March. It makes for a fun night for all and, in this case, an important and special night as well.”
The Professors are a group of composing musicians who perform in the New York and New Jersey area. Also based in Central New Jersey, The Professors bring together rhythms and sounds from a variety of styles to create provocative original and interpretive music with ingredients drawn from the Chicago blues, British psychedelic rock and the classics. Band members are Peter VanEmburg, Senior Software Engineer at Lockheed Martin, on drums; Meg Radford, sophomore pre-vet student at Rutgers University, on guitar and vocals; Gary Radford, Professor of Communication Studies at Fairleigh Dickinson University, on guitar; Marie Radford, Associate Professor of Library and Information Science at Rutgers University, on keyboards; and Nick Romanenko, Staff Photographer at Rutgers University, on bass. Speaking for the band, drummer Peter VanEmburg says, “It is an honor and a privilege for us to participate in this year’s event. The ability to transform a horrific tragedy into a celebration of life is one of the yardsticks of a truly progressive and civilized culture and we are truly grateful to have the opportunity to contribute to that transformation process. Of course, we also relish the opportunity to perform and to rock the house.”
The concert is free, and light refreshments will be served. More information is available by contacting the Temple B’nai Shalom office at 732-251-4300.
2008 — Temple B’nai Shalom’s Daniel Pearl Education Center to celebrate Daniel Pearl World Music Days with free Brazilian jazz concert
Temple B’nai Shalom’s Daniel Pearl Education Center is celebrating the fourth annual Daniel Pearl World Music Days, a worldwide celebration of music honoring the slain Wall Street Journal reporter and musician, with a joyous, spirited Brazilian jazz concert on Tuesday, Oct. 10.
The irony is not lost on concert organizers and Center officials.
“Brazilian jazz is waves of energy and rhythm, with a open, surging quality,” says Ronni Rose, the concert organizer and a member of the Daniel Pearl Education Center’s leadership committee. “It’s a wonderful celebration of life.”
Four years ago, while researching a story in Pakistan, Pearl was kidnapped and later brutally murdered by extremists. Soon thereafter, to ensure that Pearl’s important messages of tolerance and understanding were reinforced locally, the East Brunswick synagogue’s leaders renamed its education center in Pearl’s memory in a ceremony attended by Pearl’s family, then Sen. Jon Corzine and fellow Senator Frank Lautenberg, and other dignitaries.
“This is always a time of joy and sadness for us,” says Dr. Andrew Boyarsky, chairman of the Daniel Pearl Education Center. “The concert is meant to be uplifting and unifying. It is critical that our temple community and our community at large never forget that Danny died for something he believed in – a world community of peace and understanding.
“As Jews, we of course feel a great kinship with Danny. But as world citizens, we feel that same kinship,” he adds.
The idea of a Brazilian jazz concert was Rose’s. Jazz director of the Cornerstone, a nationally acclaimed jazz club in Metuchen, Rose had a commitment to the Daniel Pearl World Music Days and access to some of the country’s leading jazz performers.
The concert will feature the Cliff Korman Quartet, including Korman himself, a noted jazz pianist who has teamed with Brazilian bossa-nova legend Astrud Gilberto in the past. A Brazilian jazz composer and pianist, Korman has performed with major jazz musicians in the US, Europe and Brazil. Accompanying Korman will be Billy Drewes on tenor sax, Vanderlei Pereira on drums and Andy Eulau on bass.
The concert begins at 8 p.m. and is free to the community, thanks to the generosity of the musicians themselves. Rose says she really wasn’t surprised by the jazz community’s support for the concert and the cause.
“Cliff considered it an honor to present a musical tribute to Daniel Pearl, whose work and spirit must remain with us always,” Rose says.
Adds Center chairman Dr. Boyarsky, “This program, as with all of our Daniel Pearl Education Center programs, goes well beyond our temple community, and we encourage and anticipate broad interest. Danny’s vision and our raison d’etre are one – to bring all people together, in peace and in this case, in music.”
The Daniel Pearl World Music Days acknowledge Pearl’s belief that music could bridge differences among people. In just four years, Daniel Pearl World Music Days has grown to include thousands of concerts and performances in over 60 countries.
The Daniel Pearl Education Center is the only school-based center in the US dedicated to the ideals of the late Daniel Pearl. Activities of the Daniel Pearl Education Center include active integration of tolerance themes into the temple’s religious school and confirmation program, an annual tolerance scholarship at East Brunswick High School, and Holocaust education, including a widely acclaimed annual trip with St. Bartholomew’s Catholic Church of East Brunswick to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
More information about the Oct. 10 concert is available from the main office at Temple B’nai Shalom, 732-251-4300.
Previous concerts:
2007 — Temple B’nai Shalom’s Daniel Pearl Education Center to celebrate Daniel Pearl World Music Days with free klezmer concert
For the Daniel Pearl Education Center at Temple B’nai Shalom in East Brunswick, the upcoming annual Daniel Pearl World Music Days, a worldwide celebration of music honoring the slain Wall Street Journal reporter and musician, is always a time of mixed emotions.
“Every year we struggle with the question, How do we best honor the memory and legacy of Daniel Pearl?’” says Dr. Andrew Boyarsky, chairman of the temple’s Daniel Pearl Education Center committee, which organizes and hosts community-wide, interfaith programs, as well as an annual Daniel Pearl World Music Days concert, in Pearl’s memory.
“I’m not sure we’ll ever stop being angry about Danny’s brutal murder, but we feel strongly that his messages of tolerance, understanding and coexistence must go on,” he adds. “And music – in our case this year with klezmer’s uplifting, spirited music – is a universal way to share these messages.”
The sounds of klezmer, from the Yiddish meaning “musical instrument,” will fill the temple on Thursday, Oct. 18, from 8-10 p.m., when the Daniel Pearl Education hosts a free, community-wide concert. Klezmer is a European-based musical genre that emphasizes fast-paced melodies and is usually associated with traditional Jewish dancing. Presenting the klezmer style at Temple B’nai Shalom will be Odessa Klezmer, a six-piece ensemble led by Ed Goldberg. The band began in 1984 and has played numerous fairs, festivals, gypsy affairs, weddings, bar/bat mitzvahs, concerts and dance dates throughout the NJ-NY-PA area.
While the concert is about music and joy, Dr. Boyarsky says he will remind the audience about the life – and death – of Daniel Pearl, who while researching a story in Pakistan five years ago, was kidnapped and later brutally murdered by extremists. Soon thereafter, Temple B’nai Shalom renamed its education center in Pearl’s memory and created the DPEC committee to organize programs and activities to keep Pearl’s important messages prominent at the temple’s religious school and in the broader community.
The musicians of Odessa Klezmer are donating their time to the memory of the late Daniel Pearl, and they will be joined on stage for the concert’s first 30 minutes by three Temple B’nai Shalom teens, David Kolchmeyer on alto sax, Russell Anonsen on clarinet and Dan Hewitt on trumpet.
The Daniel Pearl World Music Days acknowledge Pearl’s belief that music could bridge differences among people. In just five years, Daniel Pearl World Music Days has grown to include thousands of concerts and performances in over 60 countries.
The Daniel Pearl Education Center was the first school-based center in the US dedicated to the ideals of the late Daniel Pearl. Activities of the Daniel Pearl Education Center include active integration of tolerance themes into the temple’s religious school and confirmation program, an annual tolerance scholarship at East Brunswick High School, and Holocaust education, including a widely acclaimed annual trip with St. Bartholomew’s Catholic Church of East Brunswick to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
More information about the Oct. 18 concert is available from the main office at Temple B’nai Shalom, 732-251-4300.