Music in Exile Series at Museum of Jewish Heritage Nov. 9-13

On Sunday, November 9, the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, and 75 years since Adolf Hitler's rise to power, the Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust and The Royal Conservatory of Music, Canada, will launch "Music in Exile-Émigré Composers of the 1930s," a five-day series of concerts, talks, and a music-theater piece celebrating the music of Jewish composers forced to flee the Third Reich and German composers who resisted the Nazi regime.  Music in Exile will be introduced by James Conlon, one of today's preeminent conductors and a vocal advocate for the study and performance of repertoire from composers affected by the rise of Nazism and the events of WWII.  Mr. Conlon is the honorary chairman of the Artists of the Royal Conservatory.

The series takes place in the Museum's Edmond J. Safra Hall located at 36 Battery Place and includes premieres by six different composers and a lecture/talk about "Entartete Musik" by Gottfried Wagner, the great-grandson of composer Richard Wagner and the founder of the Post-Holocaust Dialogue Group, which seeks to reconcile victims and perpetrators of the Holocaust.  Featured are the ARC Ensemble (Artists of the Royal Conservatory), who have dedicated themselves to the performance of both the traditional chamber music canon and the rediscovery of repertoire that, through political changes or shifts in musical fashion has been ignored or marginalized, including music written before and during the Holocaust.  Simon Wynberg, artistic director of the ARC Ensemble, is curator of the series, and Stephen Vann is the artistic producer.  Other artists include violinist Daniel Phillips, co-founder of the Orion String Quartet and professor of violin at Queens College; Canadian bass Robert Pomakov, and baritone Chris Pedro Trakas.  The series concludes on November 13 with Marc Neikrug conducting his music-theater work Through Roses, featuring veteran actor Saul Rubinek. 
 
Pre-concert talks by such authorities as Michael Beckerman, professor of music and historical musicology at New York University, and Bret Werb, musicologist of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, will complement several presentations.
 
Sunday, November 9 at 2:30 p.m. - Germany: Musical Exile and Resistance
"Music in Exile-Émigré Composers of the 1930s" opens with music by two German composers-Walter Braunfels and Adolf Busch-whose opposition to Hitler led them to remove themselves from Germany's musical life.  Adolf Busch, stripped of his German citizenship, immigrated to America, but Walter Braunfels remained in Germany as an "internal exile."  The Artists of the Royal Conservatory will play New York premiere of the Busch String Sextet in G Major, Op. 40 and the U.S. premiere of the Braunfels String Quintet in F-sharp minor, Op. 63.
 
Monday, November 10 at 7 p.m. - Continental Britons
Continental Britons is devoted to the music of composers who fled to Britain during the 1930s.  The Artists of the Royal Conservatory will perform Matyas Seiber's Divertimento for clarinet and string quartet, along with the U.S. premieres of Robert Kahn's Suite for Violin, Op. 69 and Franz Reizenstein's Piano Quintet in D Major, Op. 23.
 
In a pre-concert talk at 6 p.m., Michael Beckerman, an authority on Czech music, tells the fascinating story of "A Czech Gershwin in New York": the legendary Jaroslav Jezek , a pianist, conductor, and composer of classical, jazz, and film music, whose anti-fascist activity forced him to flee Prague for New York, where his life was cut short at age 36. 
 
Tuesday, November 11 at 7 p.m. - A Pole Apart
The entire program of November 11 will be devoted to compositions by Mieczyslaw Weinberg, a composer who fled Nazi-occupied Poland and, at the invitation of Dmitri Shostakovich, immigrated to Stalin's Russia, where he worked in collaboration with the Russian composer.  Two works on the program-the Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 28, and the Quintet for piano and strings, Op. 18-were included on a recent recording of his music by the Artists of the Royal Conservatory.  The recording, On the Threshold of Hope, was nominated for a 2007 Grammy Award.  The program also includes the North American premiere of songs for bass, featuring leading Canadian bass Robert Pomakov.
 
Wednesday, November 12 at 7 p.m. - Entartete Musik: Gottfried Wagner
Seventy years after the November pogrom of 1938-Kristallnacht-Gottfried Wagner, discusses entartete ("degenerate") music and its historical, artistic and ethical relevance for a contemporary audience.  Following Mr. Wagner's talk, he will answer questions from the audience.
 
Thursday, November 13, at 7 p.m. - Exiles to America 
"Music in Exile-Émigré Composers of the 1930s" concludes with a program devoted to European transplants in America.  The first half features music by Mario Castelnuovo Tedesco, who worked as a film composer for RKO and Universal; Hanns Eisler, a close collaborator of Berthold Brecht; and the world premiere of The Poet in Exile by Walter Arlen, a longtime music critic for the Los Angeles Times.  It will be followed by Marc Neikrug's acclaimed music-theater piece, Through Roses, which features the noted theater, film, and television actor Saul Rubinek as violinist Carl Stern, tormented by his memories of Auschwitz, where through the rose hedges of the camp commandant's garden, he witnessed the horror of the arrival of his fellow prisoners of war, the selection process and the inevitable journey to the gas chambers.  Through Roses has been performed hundreds of times throughout the world and translated into 11 languages. When it premiered in New York 27 years ago, The New York Times called it an "extraordinary achievement."  This is its first New York performance since then.
 
At 6 p.m. Bret Werb will speak about the repercussions and influence of We Will Never Die, the massive 1943 propaganda pageant by Kurt Weill and Ben Hecht, which was shown in 1943 at Madison Square Garden to an audience of 40,000 people.  Mr. Werb draws on contemporary photographs, newsreels and a rare broadcast recording to illustrate his talk.
 
Information and tickets for "Music in Exile-Émigré Composers of the 1930s" are available by calling the Museum of Jewish Heritage at 646.437.4202 or by visiting the Museum's Web site at www.mjhnyc.org
 
A statement by James Conlon about the legacy of suppression by Nazi Germany to those musicians, artists, and writers deemed offensive by the Third Reich-along with more information about the "Music in Exile-Émigré Composers of the 1930s" artists, composers, and compositions-is available at  www.mjhnyc.org/music_in_exile
 
James Conlon is the honorary chairman of the ARC Ensemble, which is following this Music in Exile series with an all-Mieczslaw Weinberg program at the Kennedy Center on November 18.   The ARC Ensemble has presented "Music in Exile" in Toronto and again in London and Budapest  this year, with further concerts in Rome, Poznan and Warsaw.
 
Kristallnacht, the night of the Broken Glass, was the first organized night of violence against the Jews of Germany.  On November 9 through November 10 in 1938, more than 1,400 synagogues were torched, attacked, and destroyed. Over 7,500 Jewish-owned shops were looted. Some 91 Jews were murdered and a staggering 30,000 Jewish men were imprisoned in Dachau or other detention camps.
 
On Display
Several artifacts from Kristallnacht are on display at the Museum, including a Torah rescued from a synagogue that night by Seligmann Bamberger, a Jew from Hamburg.  While he was out rescuing the Torah, the Gestapo came looking for him. His absence saved both himself and the Torah, which was brought to the U.S. by his family in 1940 and is now part of the Museum's Permanent Collection.
 
The Museum's Core Exhibition further illustrates the stories told through the "Music in Exile-Émigré Composers of the 1930s" concerts and programs, including information and artifacts relating the events leading up to mass migration from Europe and how music written by Jews was marginalized.  One way the Germans sought to spread their prejudice against Jewish culture, which they deemed degenerate and said eroded the Aryan way of life, was through "exhibits" of "degenerate" art.  These "exhibits" showed photos of contemporary artists and composers and attacked their character and racial origin. On display at the Museum is an exhibition catalogue from such an exhibit in Dusseldorf in 1938, the cover of which shows the image of a black man wearing a Star of David, representing jazz music, which many Germans thought the Jews brought to Germany to "destroy" Aryan culture.
 
Also on display are photos of many leading musicians, artists, and scholars who, realizing the country was no longer safe after Hitler came to power, were forced to make the difficult decision to stay or leave Germany, among them, Kurt Weill, who along with his wife Lotte Lenya, left the country in 1933.  Represented in the Museum's film about Jewish culture before the war, in addition, is Arnold Schoenberg, an Austrian Jew, who after being dismissed from his teaching and composing post in Berlin in 1933, immigrated to Paris and eventually to Los Angeles.
 
Exhibition
On display during the Music in Exile series is Woman of Letters: Irène Némirovsky and Suite Française, which opens on September 24.  A remarkable writer, Némirovsky quickly became an acclaimed author in her adopted France, where she lived for many years. But her fame and accomplishment, and even her conversion to Catholicism, were not enough to save her; she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz in 1942, where she perished within a short time. Among the few mementos Irène left her daughters, Denise and Elisabeth, who survived the war, was a valise that contained a leather notebook they believed to be their mother's diary. Haunted by painful memories, they avoided opening the notebook until Denise resolved to read it more than fifty years after her mother's death. She discovered not a diary, but a major literary work: the first two parts of an unfinished five-part novel, Suite Française, now a bestseller in several countries.
 
Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust
Since opening its doors in September 1997, the Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in Battery Park City has welcomed over one million visitors from around the world. The Museum's Core Exhibition focuses on the Holocaust and Jewish life that both preceded it and followed it.  Special exhibitions, public programming, and contemplative spaces enrich the visitor experience.
 
Created as a living memorial to those who perished in the Holocaust, the Museum honors those who died by celebrating their lives - cherishing the traditions that they embraced, examining their achievements and faith, and affirming the vibrant worldwide Jewish community that is their legacy today.
 
In the 375-seat, state-of-the-art Edmond J. Safra Hall, the Museum presents a full schedule of public programs across the cultural spectrum.  Classical musicians who have appeared at the Museum include Regina Resnik, Vladimir Feltsman, Misha and Cipa Dichter, the Israeli Contemporary String Quartet, and the Riverside Choral Society led by PatRick Gardner. Highlights of the classical music offerings have included: the world premiere of the two-piano version of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 13; a concert honoring Ezra Laderman; and a program of the music by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco.
 
Sunday, November 9 to Thursday, November 13, 2008
Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust
36 Battery Place
New York, NY 10280
646.437.4202
 
Information and tickets for "Music in Exile-Émigré Composers of the 1930s" are available by calling the Museum of Jewish Heritage at 646.437.4202 or by visiting the Museum's Web site at www.mjhnyc.org
 
"Music in Exile, Émigré Composers of the 1930s," is a project of The Royal Conservatory.