by Jeanie Brindley-Barnett

Ten years ago I received a gift from a dear friend, Cantor Neil Newman at Beth El Synagogue in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. He presented me with a copy of the book, I Never Saw Another Butterfly, and said, “Jeanie, you must have this, as I know how much you love children and how magical you are with them!” I accepted, having no idea that this book would take me on the most incredible journey of my life.

I Never Saw Another Butterfly, published by Schocken Books, is a compilation of approximately 200 of the more than 4,000 drawings and poems written by the children who were imprisoned at Terezin concentration camp from 1942-44. When I read that only 100 of the 15,000 children who were interned in Terezin survived, I dreamt of one day meeting one of the survivors. I also dreamt of viewing the original drawings in the Terezin Collection. Both of these dreams have come true, and much, much more.

The children of Terezin were forced to perform hard labor every day, but gathered in a hiding place for “secret school” each night. Of course, all formal education of the Jewish children was banned by the Nazis. They did allow them to draw and paint, however, believing that this posed no threat to the “final solution.” Ironically, the children’s poetry and drawings proved to be their most powerful weapon for survival. Art provided a source of hope and courage to live another day. Art enabled the children to express their innermost feelings, allowing them some degree of happiness, if only for a brief moment.

The paintings and poems of I Never Saw Another Butterfly were music to me immediately. As I read, I actually heard the voices of children: first a girl, then a boy, and then sometimes a group of children singing. What happened was so extraordinary for me that I knew I had to notate all I heard. My song cycle, “Butterfly Songs,” is a setting of ten poems from the book. From its original instrumentation for solo voice and piano, the work has metamorphosed into various arrangements.

It took nearly two years for me to secure the legal rights to use the poetry. The different publishing houses I contacted, in both the United States and Europe, were of little assistance. Eventually, however, I reached my ultimate destination: the Jewish Museum in Prague, the original copyright holder of the Terezin Collection. But my “quest” was not yet over, because the Museum was in constant turmoil due to vast changes resulting from the end of Communist rule. Finally, the Museum’s director granted me permission to use nine of the ten poems that I had requested, but informed me that the tenth remained the property of the writer, Alena (Synkova) Munková, who was living in Prague. She told me that Alena was the only living survivor whose poems appear in the book. She gave me Alena’s phone number and asked that I contact her personally.

Overcome with emotion, I phoned Alena immediately. Although Alena knew some English, she could not understand my request to use her poem “To Olga,” until I pulled the phone over to the piano and began singing, “Listen...the boat whistle has sounded now, and we must sail out toward an unknown port.” There was brief silence, and then Alena cried, “Yes, yes, I know what you want...that is so beautiful.” She immediately recognized the first line of her poem in English. We both began to cry and promised each other that we would someday meet. A year later, my husband Steve and I sent Alena all of our frequent flyer coupons and brought her, for the first time, to the United States.

At the time, we had no idea that Alena’s visit would coincide with a performance of “Butterfly Songs” by the Minnesota Orchestra. The work was featured on the culminating concert of a week devoted to Entartete Musik — “degenerate music” banned by the Nazis. Alena was invited to appear on the stage of Orchestra Hall to read her poems in both Czech and English. After the concert, she pulled me aside and said, “This trip to America...it’s a dream, Jeanie, it’s a dream. Now you must come to Prague to make the rest of your dream come true.”

In July 1994, Alena met with FESTA PRAHA, a concert agency in Prague, to ask if they would be interested in programming “Butterfly Songs” there. In September, I received a fax from FESTA requesting permission to program the piece on the final concert of their fifth Festival of 20th-Century Music, an annual series. They proposed to produce this concert, entitled Vox Humanus, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, and requested the scores and parts, which I sent immediately. Four months later I received a fax that read “Program Draft: Vox Humanus, October, 1995; Venue: the Rudolfinum-Dvorák Hall; Works: Gershwin, Bernstein, and Brindley-Barnett; Performers: the Barock Jazz Quintet, the Bohemia String Quartet, the Kühnuv Children’s Choir [one of the finest in the world], soprano Jitka Sobhartová [member of the National Theatre], and Komorní sbor Praha [members of Czech Philharmonic Choir], with Mirko Krebs, conductor.”

Eight months later, the dream came true. Steve and I travelled to Prague for the international premiere of “Butterfly Songs.” As I stepped off the plane, all I could hear was Alena’s voice saying, “It’s a dream, Jeanie, it’s a dream.” And Prague was a dream — first attending the rehearsals with the fabulous musicians at the Jewish Town Hall and St. Agnes Convent, then visiting with the directors of the Jewish Museum in Prague and the Terezin Museum, viewing the original children’s art with Alena, then seeing the camp itself with her: standing beside her “dorm,”, looking up to her room and seeing the window from which she gazed each night, dreaming that one day she would be free and fly away like a bird. And then the finale: attending with Alena the performance of “Butterfly Songs” in the beautiful Rudolfinum.

I Never Saw Another Butterfly inspired me to find my true voice as a composer. Over the years, “Butterfly Songs” has created unique opportunities for my metamorphosis — my development and maturation as a composer. The children, the voices of their spirits, will always be a source of inspiration. Even through the barbed wire they saw beauty and hope:

“If in barbed wire things can bloom,

Why couldn’t I? I will not die!”

(an excerpt from the poem, “On a Sunny Evening”)

Jeanie Brindley-Barnett received a Minnesota State Arts Board Career Opportunities Grant for her travel to Prague. For the past ten years she has been a Roster Artist with Young Audiences of Minnesota, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and the North Dakota Council on the Arts, conducting composition residencies and performances in K-12 schools.