Warsaw’s Musical Feast Dazzles at Ahavath Achim

Benjamin Warsaw’s piano concert at Ahavath Achim Synagogue, on Sunday, Sept. 22, was a musical tapestry, presenting a masterful, wide-ranging, occasionally surprising program. Warsaw, a classical pianist, composer, teacher, accompanist, and ensemble participant, is a professor in the Gretsch School of Music in the College of Arts and Humanities on the Armstrong campus of Georgia Southern University in Savannah. He teaches students piano and theory and is the Artistic Director of Piano in the Arts, a concert series.

Warsaw crafted the Ahavath Achim program, in his words, to be “a feast of sound,” employing the piano to transport listeners into a space of awe and pleasure via each piece of beautiful and occasionally unexpected music, which included a few of Warsaw’s original compositions and adaptations. He succeeded: listeners were immersed in the music.

Warsaw playing Chopin.

Members of the audience crowded around Warsaw during the concert intermission and following the concert, to express their admiration of his virtuoso playing and thanking him for playing that affected them emotionally. Some of his admirers wanted to share music-related anecdotes. They found that Warsaw was easy to engage. It was clear that he enjoyed these moments of interaction with other music lovers. Many of them remarked about his original composition, the concert opener, “In-er-tia,” which showcased Warsaw’s creativity and brilliance; his emotive arrangement of “Yerushalayim Shel Zahav;” and his mastery of a complex and thrilling Chopin waltz.

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Throughout the concert, Warsaw’s charismatic personality flourished when he briefly introduced each piece in the program, alerting the rapt audience to the “pitch, dynamism and rhythm” of selections. He likened the progression of the program to a meal, moving from finger food and an appetizer to the main course, followed by a palate cleanser, and finally, he announced, “I’ll now give you Prokofiev as dessert!” After a standing ovation, the audience was treated to an encore, the popular “Oseh Shalom,” to which everyone clapped in rhythm and joyfully sang along. It was generally agreed that they had never heard such a spirited original arrangement of the song.

Warsaw has an interesting weekly side job: for the last two years, he has been playing piano (not organ) for two Methodist churches on Sunday mornings, one where he plays contemporary Christian music, the other where he plays traditional hymns. Many of the congregants regularly attend his concerts, and he calls them his “church family.” Clearly, Warsaw’s affable personality and piano expertise are widely appreciated.

This was Warsaw’s fourth appearance at Ahavath Achim. He has a strong following in Atlanta, where folks know that they will be treated to an inspiring, energizing and elucidating musical experience. The sizeable audience on Sept. 22 included family members, old acquaintances, and even his first- and second-grade teachers from his Hebrew Academy days. At the reception following the concert, the room bubbled with reunions, and Warsaw was frequently approached about scheduling future concerts throughout the south.

Benjamin Warsaw with Ivan Millender

Warsaw, a native Atlantan, attended the Hebrew Academy (now Atlanta Jewish Academy). He went on to graduate from the prestigious Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., where he received a Bachelor of Music (BM) and Master of Music (MM), followed by a Doctor of Music (DMA) in piano performance in 2011. His debut recording in 2015, “Warsaw Plays Warsaw,” features 24 original Preludes for a piano solo, and during the program the audience got a delicious taste of these. He has been on the faculty of Georgia Southern University for 12 years, and the Warsaws belong to Orthodox B’nai Brith Jacob synagogue in Savannah. “My wife and I are both ba’alei teshuva and didn’t grow up in Orthodox homes; however, when we met, we both wanted to maintain a traditional home.”

When asked what he likes to do when he’s not teaching or performing, Warsaw, a happily devoted family man, laughs, “I’m mostly raising kids right now.” He tries to practice piano every day and says his best friends are other musicians. The family likes to travel and spend time outdoors, and Warsaw loves to listen to a wide range of music, noting, “I do have a good vinyl collection!”

Although he won’t be pinned down to name his favorite composers, Warsaw says he enjoys practicing and performing Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, Chopin and Mozart along with newer composers, like Edwin Schulhoff who died in the Holocaust, and adds that he loves to listen to Bach. He states, “I try to practice for pleasure every day; it’s a necessity for me, like eating a good meal.”

Warsaw started taking piano lessons when he was eight years old and loved it. “No one had to make me practice!” he asserts. Although he allowed his piano practice to pause during his teen years, he eventually realized the meaning of piano in his life and returned to daily practice. Warsaw explains, “I took a few years off as a teen, then came back to my piano with great passion.”

Warsaw’s parents, who now reside in Sandy Springs and are members of Congregation Beth Tefillah, moved their family to Israel late in 1983, and lived there for two years. Although he was only a toddler at the time, Warsaw’s bond with Israel remains strong and deep.

He affirms, “After the horrors of Oct. 7, I wanted to do something meaningful in response. I am a musician, and I realized that I could use my skill. I created a 20-minute program of music by contemporary Jewish composers like Gershwin and Leonard Cohen, along with traditional Hebrew melodies, and I’ve been offering the program to Jewish schools and shuls, free of charge. The idea was to share with other Jews a way to connect to Israel through music.”

Warsaw continues to bring his unique program to Jewish groups. He can be contacted at bwarsaw@georgiasouthern.edu.

The Ahavath Achim Cultural Arts Series was founded in 1980 by a small group of congregants and was administered by Harriet and the late Sam Draluck for 24 years. The series was substantially funded in its second year by the late Al Davis in honor of Rabbi Harry H. Epstein’s retirement. In 2004, Ivan Millender assumed responsibility for the music series’ organization and administration. The concerts, which are open to the community, do not charge admission fees, but rely upon voluntary donations by those in attendance and other generous donors. In 2022, synagogue member Marilyn Eckstein made a substantial donation to the synagogue in trust, for support of cultural arts at the synagogue, of which the music series is a major recipient. The trust, along with continued donor support, insures its continued operation.