Saturday, November 14, 2026
Following a reported hate crime at Young Israel of West Hempstead in October, local resident Jonathan Grossman brought the story of a Jewish composer murdered during the Holocaust to the synagogue on Nov. 8.
“One of the things that makes our school community so special is we have special, amazing, talented people in our community,” Rabbi Joshua Goller said.
Grossman, founder and president of The Chamber Music Experience, presented his research into Dutch-Jewish composer Dick Kattenburg, whose surviving manuscripts helped reconstruct his life and the stories of those who protected his family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
The presentation was inspired by the October incident. The program, A Diary in Sound, received a New York State Council on the Arts grant administered by the Huntington Arts Council.
“After the attack on our synagogue,” Grossman said about the inspiration for the presentation. “It reminded me of that email that I mentioned, where the grandson of one of these families that had helped Dick talked about the damage to his grandparents’ door [by Nazis].”
Born in Amsterdam in 1919, Kattenburg was establishing himself as a composer when Germany invaded the Netherlands in 1940. He continued writing music while in hiding and was murdered at Auschwitz in 1944 at age 24.
His music resurfaced around the turn of the century when Dutch flutist Eleonore Pameijer received a flute sonata Kattenburg composed in 1937 for Ima van Esso, an Auschwitz survivor who had preserved it for more than 60 years.
Pameijer, founder of the Leo Smit Foundation, which preserves music by composers persecuted during the Holocaust, began performing the composition.
In 2004, Kattenburg’s niece, Joyce Bergman-van Hessen, discovered an online concert announcement featuring the sonata. Searching her late mother’s belongings, she uncovered manuscripts untouched for decades.
Grossman’s interest in Kattenburg’s music grew into an investigation of those who helped his family survive.
Among them was Jeanne Coolsma, a Dutch musician who sheltered Kattenburg and his sister, Daisy, during the occupation. Yad Vashem recognized her as Righteous Among the Nations in 1992.
Through archives and correspondence with relatives, Grossman uncovered photographs, letters and family stories. Arranging Kattenburg’s compositions chronologically, he found what amounted to a musical diary, including pieces dedicated to friends and arrangements incorporating Hebrew and Jewish melodies.
Grossman developed his findings into A Diary in Sound: The Life and Music of Dick Kattenburg, combining narration, historical records and live music.
The program will premiere Sunday, Nov. 15, at 2 p.m. at the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library. Grossman will narrate Kattenburg’s life while projecting historical materials, with five professional musicians performing compositions at corresponding moments.
“This is an amazing opportunity to present chamber music in a different kind of way,” Grossman said. “This is the premiere of the diary and sounds, and I hope that we can continue to bring this program and others like it to other venues here on Long Island.”
The ensemble includes Juilliard faculty pianist Steven Beck; Trio Fadolín members Sabina Torosjan, Valeriya Sholokhova and Ljova Zhurbin, all Juilliard graduates; and flutist Lucy Rubin, whose doctoral research focuses on music from World War II and the Holocaust.
Grossman hopes to preserve Kattenburg’s music and the stories of those who helped his family during the Nazi occupation.
Although Kattenburg never had the opportunity to build his musical career, his compositions continue reaching audiences through researchers and musicians, including Grossman, whose work brought the composer’s story to West Hempstead.
