Concert for the Day of Remembrance / Samudaripen at Carnegie Hall
Most concerts I photograph at Weill Recital Hall follow a familiar rhythm. A performer walks on stage, takes a bow, and plays. The audience listens, applauds at the right moments, and files out at the end. There's a structure to it, and I love that structure. It's what keeps me coming back to these performances.
This one broke the pattern in the best way.
The Concert for the Day of Remembrance, or Samudaripen, took place on February 2nd at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall. It was organized by the Union of Roma Communities in Italy to commemorate the genocide of the Roma and Sinti people during World War II. Samudaripen is a Romani word meaning "mass killing," and the evening was built around making sure that history isn't forgotten.
The featured performers were Gennaro Spinelli on violin and Santino Spinelli on fisarmonica, accompanied by musicians from the Orchestra Europea per la Pace. Father and son, performing together on one of Carnegie Hall's stages. That relationship added something to the performance that you could feel even before you knew the connection. There's a level of trust and communication between musicians who've played together their whole lives, and it came through in every phrase.
The program wove together classical repertoire, traditional Romani music, and reworked versions of well-known compositions with improvisation layered in. That last part is what really set the evening apart musically. Taking something familiar and reshaping it through a Romani lens gave the music an energy and unpredictability that kept the whole room leaning in.
Midway through the concert, a set of readings gave context to the music, grounding everything in the history the evening was there to honor. While the readings were happening, Gennaro and Santino played quietly underneath them, improvising behind the spoken words. I'm not sure if that was planned or spontaneous, but it didn't matter. It turned the readings into something more than a pause between pieces. The music and the history felt inseparable.
And then a couple of audience members got up and danced.
That's not something you see at Weill Recital Hall. The room seats 268 people, the lighting is warm, and the atmosphere is usually one of focused attention. But the Romani music hit a point where sitting still wasn't an option for everyone. It was one of those moments that reminded me why I do this work. You can't plan for that in a photo. You can only be ready when it happens.
From a photography standpoint, the evening gave me a lot to work with. The interplay between father and son on stage. The contrast between the solemn readings and the bursts of energy in the traditional music. The improvised passages were especially interesting to shoot because the musicians were reacting to each other in real time, and those moments of connection between performers are what I'm always looking for.
During World War II, an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 Roma and Sinti were killed by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, and for many people, the Samudaripen remains an unfamiliar chapter of that history. Bringing that remembrance to Carnegie Hall, supported by the Italian Cultural Institute of New York and major European Roma organizations, felt significant. The concert ended with a standing ovation, and it felt earned in a way that went beyond the music.
I sent preview images to the organizers that same night. Events like this need images quickly, while the energy is still fresh and the organizations involved can use them for press coverage, social media, and future programming materials. Documentation of cultural events tied to remembrance and advocacy carries extra weight. These photos aren't just promotional materials. They're part of the record.
If your organization is planning a performance at Carnegie Hall or any NYC venue and needs a photographer who knows these spaces, I'd love to hear about it. You can check out more of my work here or get in touch to start a conversation.
