Dedication

Roger Peltzman is a pianist and teacher in New York City. Among his many public performances, Roger has played to sold out audiences at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York's cutting-edge venue—Le Poisson Rouge and in various European venues. He is also an actor, writer and director.
In 2018 he began writing his one-person show Dedication under the tutelage of renowned actor/director Austin Pendleton. Over the course of 3 ½ years he continued to work on it with input from famed Broadway director Seth Barrish. In August of 2021 the play was staged and filmed.
Dedication is about his mother’s family who fled Berlin for Brussels in 1933 with the rise of Hitler. The primary focus of the film is his relationship to his uncle Norbert – arguably the finest pianist in Belgium, who was murdered in Auschwitz at 21 years old. In 2013 Peltzman recorded a CD on the same stage where Norbert won competitions in Brussels. Roger then gave the CD release concert at the Kazerne Dossin Museum in Mechelen, Belgium – located on the site from which his family was sent to their deaths. Peltzman incorporates his piano playing into the performance with everything from blues to Chopin.
The film’s underlying theme is the acknowledgment and resolution of trauma. In Peltzman’s particular case, his experience of overcoming second generation Holocaust trauma trough music. Through careful research, Roger assembled the stories of his lost family, turning familiar ghosts into actual family. This journey is what constitutes Dedication.