NEWS GLEAMS: Who Will Lead the SPL? Remembering the Holocaust and Executive Order 9066

curated by Emerald Staff

A round-up of news and announcements we don't want to get lost in the fast-churning news cycle!

✨Gleaming This Week✨

• The Seattle Public Library Announces Two Final Candidates for Chief Librarian
• Holocaust Center for Humanity in Seattle Commemorates International Holocaust Remembrance Day With Virtual Event
• Seattle Symphony Remembers Executive Order 9066 in Multimedia Concert

The Seattle Public Library Announces Two Final Candidates for Chief Librarian

Tom Fay, the current interim chief librarian, and Chad Helton, library director for Hennepin County Library in Minnesota, are the two finalists for Seattle's next chief librarian.

Interviews with Fay will be held on Feb. 9 and with Helton on Feb. 10. The library board and senior management will conduct the interviews, and there will also be virtual sessions with staff and the public to be announced on SPL's website.

"I am very pleased that Mr. Fay and Mr. Helton — both highly experienced, quality candidates for this important position — will have an opportunity to share more about their vision for the future of The Seattle Public Library," said Carmen Bendixen, president of SPL's board of trustees, in a press release.

The Library appointed a nine-member Search Advisory Committee in April 2021 after previous Chief Librarian Marcellus Turner left for a similar position in North Carolina.For further information about the process and background on the candidates, go here.

Holocaust Center for Humanity in Seattle Commemorates International Holocaust Remembrance Day With Virtual Event

The Holocaust Center for Humanity in Seattle will commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Thursday, Jan. 27, with a virtual event entitled, "Hours of Freedom: The Story of the Terezn Composer."

From the Holocaust Center for Humanity: "Hours of Freedom: The Story of the Terezn Composer highlights music by composers who continued to write new music while imprisoned in the Theresienstadt (Terezn) Concentration Camp during World War II. Aware that their lives were fragile, and that deportations to the east were a constant reality, Hours of Freedom explores their need to create this new music as affirmation of a future. Featuring works that miraculously survived, Hours of Freedom is presented as chapters with titles including 'The Eyewitness,' 'Fate,' 'The Broken Heart,' and 'The Messenger.' While some of the compositions reflect personal eyewitness accounts of the agony and suffering in Terezn, others express the assurance of a return to life as it was before the war."

Free tickets are required for the 7 p.m. virtual performance and can be obtained here.

Seattle Symphony Remembers Executive Order 9066 in Multimedia Concert

The Seattle Symphony will commemorate the 80th anniversary of Executive Order 9066, which led to the internment of thousands of Japanese living in the United States during World War II, in a multimedia concert Thursday, Jan. 27, and Saturday, Jan. 29, night.

Executive Order 9066 was signed Feb. 19, 1942, by President Franklin Roosevelt and allowed for the forced removal of Japanese from their homes, businesses, and communities to desolate locations. Families — left homes and livelihoods and bringing only what they could carry — were transported and herded behind barbed wire fences to live in makeshift accommodations under armed guard.

From the Seattle Symphony: "Opening the program is a Seattle Symphony commission and world premiere by Japanese American composer Paul Chihara, which grapples with Chihara's lived experience from the incarceration; then the musicians are joined onstage by Seattle-born Kishi Bashi for his own Improvisations on EO9066; Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 rounds out the program.

"Alongside this powerful concert, the Seattle Symphony presents 'Pictures of Executive Order 9066,' an immersive, self-guided video experience featuring photography by Dorothea Lange and oral histories supplied by Densho. The exhibition showcases award-winning filmmaker J.J. Gerber and singer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter Kishi Bashi's exploration into stories of those impacted by Executive Order 9066."

For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the Seattle Symphony Concerts & Tickets webpage.

The South Seattle Emerald website contains information and content supplied by third parties and community members. Information contained herein regarding any specific person, commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the South Seattle Emerald, its directors, editors, or staff members.