By Ken Gewertz

Gazette Staff

No one knows the exact date on which King David conquered Jerusalem and made it the capital of Israel, but archaeologists estimate that it was somewhere around the year 1000 B.C.

That means that as we approach the millennial year 2000, we are also approaching (or have already reached, given the ambiguities of the archaeological record) Jerusalem's trimillennium. This situation prompted Teddy Kollek, mayor of Jerusalem from 1965 to 1992, to declare 1996 Jerusalem's 3,000th anniversary.

Jerusalem 3000 is being celebrated in Jerusalem itself with an array of nonpolitical, multireligious events, including concerts, exhibitions, conferences, festivals, parades, and sporting events.

The event is also being celebrated around the world. Harvard's salute to Jerusalem on its 3,000th anniversary will take place on Monday, Dec. 2, at Sanders Theatre.

"In Praise of Jerusalem: An Evening of Poetry and Song" will begin at 8 p.m., with Robert Brustein, director of the Loeb Drama Center, as master of ceremonies. The event is sponsored by Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the Consulate General of Israel to New England, and the Jewish Community Relations Council. It is cosponsored by the American Repertory Theatre, the Memorial Church, Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel, and the Catholic-Jewish-Muslim Trialogue.

The program will include readings in Hebrew, Arabic, and English, as well as a variety of musical presentations relating in some way to the theme of Jerusalem.

The musical offerings will include selections from the gospel opera Moses by Cambridge-based composer Walter Robinson, who will conduct a group of singers in a performance of several excerpts from the work.

Moses is a work in progress commissioned by Meet The Composer, a national service organization founded in 1974 to foster the creation, performance, and recording of music by American composers and to broaden audiences for music of our time.

A second musical presentation will be a selection of works by the Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel Mizmor Shir Choir. The group will perform songs in Hebrew by 20th-century composers Paul Ben Haim, Gil Aldema, Charles Osborne, and Steven Walvick, and one piece by Salomone de' Rossi, a Jewish composer of the later Italian Renaissance.

Finally, the University Choir under the direction of University Organist and Choirmaster Murray Forbes Somerville, will perform a number of text settings by a widely varied group of composers.

"The University Choir is very honored and pleased to be a part of such a significant event," Somerville said. "I've spent a great deal of time researching the repertoire to find pieces that represent both the Hebrew and Christian traditions and that not only reflect Jerusalem's actual political existence, but also its symbolic value."

The Choir's performance will open with a series of psalm texts, beginning with "Bow thine ear, O Lord" by the English Renaissance composer William Byrd, concerning the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile.

This will be followed by "O Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem" by the early Baroque composer John Blow and then by "I Was Glad when they said unto me Let us go up into the House of the Lord," a festive piece for choir and string quartet by Henry Purcell.

The string players for this piece are all Harvard undergraduates who have played in the Baroque Chamber Orchestra and will be performing the piece with baroque bows, which Somerville said "will provide a whole other dimension to the piece."

In the second part of their performance, the Choir will perform "The Song of Deborah" by the contemporary American composer Adolphus Hailstork. This will be followed by "He, Watching over Israel," a selection from Felix Mendelssohn's oratorio Elijah, a work that has been treasured by both Christians and Jews. The final work will be "Jerusalem, Thou City of Beauty," by the contemporary Israeli composer Tsvi Avni.

Tickets for the event are on sale at the Sanders Theatre Box Office for $10; $6 for students and seniors. For further information, call 496-2222.