ABOUT US
Papers Please. After Two Pianos' premiere our formative relationship with the Judische Kulturbund Project (JKP) ended by mutual agreement. In July 2018 we formed a new production entity, Papers Please, to bring the Two Pianos performance/exhibit to broader audiences in Europe and the U.S. Its Board and Advisory Committee include
representatives of the Levin-Hoffman families, a former Director of Planned
Giving for the Metropolitan Opera (NYC), and a former board member of the Raoul Wallenberg Committee - U.S.
TWO PIANOS: BIOS
Nora Jean and Michael Levin wrote the original narrative for Two Pianos with The Jüdische Kulturbund Project, drawing from Hoffman family materials and the Levins' source-book Papers, Please—A Twentieth Century Odyssey. They also wrote the exhibit panel narratives, exhibit case labels, and the text for Two Pianos' 32-page brochure (translated into German and distributed to Leipzig program attendees). From 1978 the Levins juggled day jobs with a quest to document Jean's parents’ tumultuous European pasts -- a task amplified when they inherited boxes of documents, photographs and artifacts after Hirsch and Anna's deaths in 1985 and 2003.
Nora Jean is a Philadelphia native
and the first “real American” in her 1930s immigrant family. She earned political science degrees with minors in history from the University of
Pennsylvania, where she met Michael.
From 2004-2018 Jean directed Caring From a Distance, Inc., America's only nonprofit
providing information and advocacy for long-distance
caregivers (www.cfad.org). She also managed CFAD's award-winning website. From 1976-85 she co-founded
and managed The Workplace, Inc., Washington DC’s first rental office suite
for writers, consultants and staff of small non-profit organizations. During that time she and colleague Janet Steiger co-authored To
Light One Candle: A Handbook for Organizing, Funding and Maintaining Public
Service Projects (ABA Press, 1978-1979). In 1986 Jean wrote a
path-breaking step-by-step eldercare book, How to Care for Your Parents: A Handbook for Adult
Children (Storm King Press, 1987,1990, 1993). Its successor, How to Care for your Parents: A Practical Guide to Eldercare (Norton, 1997) helped caregivers navigate the new internet and provided structural content for CFAD's website. Her articles on personal life interests have appeared in the Washington Post and Vineyard Gazette. Her first professional job (1966-1969) was teaching high school students in Weston Massachusetts.
Michael has been writing creatively all his adult life, legal deadlines notwithstanding. He has degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard Law School, and Oxford University (U.K.). Pursued by a Vietnam-era draft board, he declined play-writing fellowships to Carnegie and Yale Drama Schools, likely saving American theater. He has published poems in two chapbooks, several anthologies and dozens of periodicals, and has received poetry and feature journalism awards. His collections Watered Colors and Man Overboard were named Best Poetry Books for May 2014 and December 2018 by the Washington Independent Review of Books.
Before entering private
practice Mike served as an appellate lawyer and executive in
several federal agencies; in the Carter White House as Deputy Director of a
Cabinet-level OSHA Reform Task Force; and as legislative aide to former Rep.
Andrew Maguire (D-NJ) and Senate Judiciary Committee aide to the late Sen Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA). In 1982 he was awarded
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Gold Medal for Exceptional Service. An environmental lawyer and solar energy developer, he also is Contributing Editor
to BioCycle Magazine. He has been listed in Who’s Who in American Law, Who’s Who in Business and Finance, and Who’s Who in the World. Some of his
work is at www.michaellevinpoetry.com
Mike and Jean married in England in 1966 and are based in Washington DC. They have two sons, Jeremy and Dan, and two grandsons.
Kenneth Hoffman. Ken Hoffman is Halina Neuman’s oldest grandson. Halina and Ken’s mother Jola survived exclusion, displacement, and labor and DP camps largely because of music.
Halina and Jola emigrated after WW II to England and then the U.S. As a new immigrant,In New Jersey Jola met and married American-born Eli Hoffman. Jola and Eli were lifelong civil rights activists who marched for peace and worked for desegregation and equal rights. Ken and his brothers Marc, David, and Edward inherited their social justice values.
As her first-born grandson Ken had a devoted relationship with Halina. Among other adventures she took him across the U.S. at age 11 and they visited Tanya and Walter Ury in California. Neither Halina nor Jola told Ken much about their experiences “before America.” That history gradually unfolded – partly through Halina’s long friendship with Anna Bieler, and partly through research by Jean and Michael Levin. Ken’s involvement with Two Pianos has brought this story to a special conclusion for him.
Ken lives in Rockville MD where he maintains a consulting private practice. At his December 2017 “retirement” he was in Tanzania at a zonal referral hospital, mentoring safe scale-up of a new opioid treatment program that also covered patients who were heroin-addicted, HIV-positive, possibly pregnant, and infected with hepatitis or tuberculosis. Since 2009 he has served on the Board of Directors of Oxford House (https://www.oxfordhouse.org/userfiles/file/), a national network of over 2400 self-supported self-run substance-abuse recovery homes. In 2010 he was appointed by Maryland’s Governor to the Montgomery College Board of Trustees (http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/). He recently was appointed for a second term.
Ken has been married to Ann since 1983. They have one son, Jay, and two daughters, Leah and Phoebe.
Pianist-Performers
Stanislava Varshavski and Diana Shapiro began playing together in 1998. They have captured top prizes at numerous competitions including the most prestigious competition for piano duos, the Murray Dranoff International Piano Competition in Miami. A winner of Astral Artists’ 2012 National Auditions, the Varshavski-Shapiro Piano Duo also received first prizes at Italy’s XV Piano Competition “Rome 2004,” Jerusalem’s Kol HaMusica Young Artists Competition, the Israel Chamber Music Competition, the XIII Schubert Competition in the Czech Republic, and the First International Piano Duo Competition in Bialystok Poland.
Varshavski and Shapiro hold Bachelor and Master degrees from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, where they studied with legendary Israeli duo Alexander Tamir and Bracha Eden. They continued their education under renowned American pianist Victor Rosenbaum. In 2011 they each received doctoral degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Shapiro is an Assistant Professor of Piano and Chair of the Music Department at Silver Lake College. Varshavski is Director of Education at the Holy Family Conservatory of Music. They live near Milwaukee.
The Varshavski-Shapiro Piano Duo is internationally represented by Astral Artists of Philadelphia.
