#Diane White Clayton

By Larry Blumenfeld. In late February at Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles, Remy Ohara, a UCLA music student, sounded a shofar, the ram’s horn usually used for High Holiday services at Jewish temples—first in short blasts, then longer sustained tones. Surrounded by a brass and percussion orchestra and flanked by two sections of

Thousands witnessed three days of "Music and Justice" hosted by the Lowell Milken Center for Music of the American Jewish Experience. Many came to see Darius, Chris and Dan Brubeck on stage, to hear two world premieres, or to catch glimpse of real life freedom riders. But the week was much more than that. The Brubecks visited classes, jammed with students, and reflected on their father's legacy at a conference.

“Want to give us a blast?” the bassist Chris Brubeck asked the young woman in a music studio at the University of California, Los Angeles, on Wednesday morning. Remy Ohara lifted a long, corkscrewing shofar to her lips and blew a resonant call. Brubeck had brought a few other shofars with him as options, but it was clear from the moment Ohara, a sophomore trumpet student, started playing that this one had what he was looking for.

On Feb. 28, the Brubecks, Arturo O'Farrill, Tonality, and a host of other artists will be joined on stage by a very special guest: Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely, one of the Freedom Riders who battled segregation in 1961.