By Cindy Mindell

WESTPORT – How does the human spirit rise above tragedy? And how can art translate tragedy into hope?

Those were the questions that composer and musician Suzanne Tanner began to ask when she first met Holocaust survivor Rachel Goldman Miller in 1992. Now, after crafting a unique multimedia musical and enduring unfathomable personal loss of her own, Tanner will bring her one-woman performance to New York to commemorate Yom HaShoah.

“Beyond Me: A Song Cycle in the Key of Survival” tells the life story of Miller, who survived the Holocaust as a child hiding in Paris and a French Catholic orphanage, and made her way to the U.S. to build a new life. The show weaves personal testimony, original dramatic song, documentary footage, and contemporary art, creating a colorful and inspiring account of one woman’s triumph of spirit over the loss of her family to the Holocaust and her son to AIDS.

Through song, Tanner portrays Miller from age 5 to age 75, as well as other family members. In the background, a large screen shows a filmed interview of Miller, photos of the parents and siblings she lost to the Holocaust and of the family she built after the war, and original artwork.

The show premiered in Los Angeles in 2003. Tanner moved from there to Westport with her two children in 2006, and was invited two years later to perform for the Jewish Federation of St. Louis, where Miller is active in the Holocaust survivor community. The Federation hailed the show as a “must-see compositional treasure for the ages,” and audience members insisted that Tanner bring the show to New York.

Suzanne Tanner performing “Beyond Me.”

“Suzanne is an amazingly gifted songwriter and performer,” Miller says. “She helped me to recover stolen memories from my life story and infused them with purpose and meaning for others… The show is very hopeful; how she was able to create such an inspiring piece from such hardship is a testament to her creative powers as a writer and storyteller.”

Tanner earned a degree in music psychology at Harvard in 1985, where she won the David McCord Prize for original music. “Beyond Me” began taking shape in the late ‘80s, when Tanner met Mark Miller while the two were working at Warner Bros. in Los Angeles. When Miller died of AIDS in 1992, Tanner organized colleagues to create a square in his memory for the AIDS Memorial Quilt.

Miller’s mother, Rachel, came to meet the group. Tanner immediately noticed a pin that Rachel was wearing: a Star of David combined with a red ribbon.

“Rachel shared her life story with me, inspiring a wellspring of thought, compassion, and song,” recalls Tanner, who soon composed “The Survivor,” the song which became the cornerstone of a musical biography to honor both Mark and Rachel: “I once wore stars, yellow for David: / Now six points of sorrow / I’ll borrow to bear / red ribbons for Mark.”

In addition to a shared love for Mark, the two women were brought even closer in 2011, when Tanner lost her 12-year-old daughter, Tess, in a van accident. Tanner is currently composing a musical honoring Tess’s life, which is slated to premiere in fall 2015, directed by Tess’s two best friends. “Writing and performing Rachel’s story is an opportunity to honor my Tess as well,” she says.

Over the years, Tanner produced “Beyond Me” using several actors, but eventually decided that she should tell the story by herself. “By performing it as a solo show, I think it goes deeper into the message of the ‘power of one’ and the ability to understand, interpret, empathize and sympathize, and connect with others,” she says. “I’m trying to widen the gates of tolerance and understanding.”

In that spirit, Tanner chose Yom HaShoah and the Museum of Jewish Heritage for the New York premiere of her work. “This is a different kind of piece, both theatrical and respectful, and I hope it’s a good way to commemorate the day,” she says. “This is my contribution to remembering. So many Holocaust survivors are dying and are not sharing their stories. I want ‘Beyond Me’ to be inspirational: we have to maintain hope, and Rachel did.”

“Beyond Me” has been selected as a feature event in the annual United Solo Theatre Festival in New York this September, the largest such artistic gathering in the world. 

“Beyond Me” : A Song Cycle in the Key of Survival, written and performed by Suzanne Tanner: Sunday, Apr. 27, 3 p.m., Safra Hall at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, Battery Park, N.Y. | Rachel Goldman Miller plans to attend and speak at this commemorative Yom HaShoah event. Tickets: $36/person; available at BeyondMeMusical.Eventbrite.com | Info: facebook/BeyondMeMusical.com | (203) 557-4561.