Category: posts-en

Concert Series ” Echo of the Unheard” | October 15th, 2025 | works by Hans Winterberg

A concert evening dedicated to the chamber music works of the composer Hans Winterberg (1901-1991). Under the title “Echo of the Unheard”, a selection of his works will be interpreted by students of the mdw.

Born in Prague, Winterberg’s artistic career was severely impaired by persecution, deportation and exile. As a Jewish composer, he survived Theresienstadt and emigrated to Germany in 1947, where he had to re-establish himself as a musician under difficult circumstances. It was only decades after his death that a rediscovery of his work began – initiated by his grandson Peter Kreitmeir and supported by the Exilarte Center of the mdw in collaboration with the music publisher Boosey & Hawkes.

Musicologist Katja Kaiser, researcher and music edition consultant at the Exilarte Center, curates the program and leads through the evening.

Wednesday, October 15th, 2025 at 7:00 p.m

Palais Ehrbar – Kleiner Ehrbar Saal
Mühlgasse 28
1040 Vienna

Admission free! / Registration here.

Contributors:

Students of the mdw

Program:

Chamber music works by Hans Winterberg from the archive of the mdw’s Exilarte Center

Concert Series ” Echo of the Unheard” | November 13th, 2025 | works by Édouard Van Cleeff

As part of this recital, students from the renowned Guildhall School of Music, under the direction of pianist Marc Verter, will present the song oeuvre of the exiled composer Édouard Van Cleeff.

The concert is part of a cooperative project between the Guildhall School and the mdw’s Exilarte Center with the aim of creating the first scholarly edition of his songs and making his music accessible to a new audience in both London and Vienna.

Although Van Cleeff celebrated successes in the 1930s – including the premiere and radio broadcast of his opera “Pancho” in Nice – little is known about his life today. He was expelled from Nice in 1943 and deported to French and later German camps. Thanks to the initiative of the American pianist Joy Schreier and the support of Renée Fleming, Van Cleeff’s musical legacy finally reached the Exilarte Center.

Thursday, November 13th, 2025 at 7:00 p.m

Palais Ehrbar – Kleiner Ehrbar Saal
Mühlgasse 28
1040 Vienna

Admission free! / Registration here.

Contributors:

Marc Verter and students of the Guildhall School of Music

Program:

Musical works by Édouard Rosario Van Cleef from the archive of the mdw’s Exilarte Center

Moderation:

Gerold Gruber
Founder of exil.arte and director of the Exilarte Center

Concert Series ” Echo of the Unheard” | December 18th, 2025 | works by Marcel Tyberg

On this concert evening, the mdw’s Exilarte Center dedicates itself to the impressive string sextet by the Austrian composer Marcel Tyberg (1893-1944).

Gerold Gruber will lead through the program and place the work in its musical and historical context.

Tyberg, originally from Vienna, later lived and worked as an organist and conductor in Abbazia (now Opatija, Croatia). Despite growing repression under National Socialism, he continued to compose and gave his musical manuscripts to a friend – shortly before he was deported to Auschwitz in 1944 and murdered there. His music, long lost, is now experiencing a belated rediscovery. Alongside symphonies and sacred music, the string sextet, now performed in its entirety for the first time in Vienna, is one of his central chamber music works.

Thursday, December 18th, 2025 at 7:00 p.m

Palais Ehrbar – Kleiner Ehrbar Saal
Mühlgasse 28
1040 Vienna

Admission free! / Registration here.

Contributors:

Students of the mdw

Program:

Marcel Tyberg: String Sextet in F minor

Moderation:

Gerold Gruber
Founder of exil.arte and head of the Exilarte Center

Concert Series ” Echo of the Unheard” | May 22, 2025 | Trios by Walter Bricht

The Trio Lumina III ensemble, founded in Vienna, presented a special chamber music program with works by Walter Brich. Bricht’s trios, which he composed specifically for flute, cello and piano, combine late romantic expressiveness with a fine chamber music structure and allow the three instruments to sound in lively exchange. Trio Lumina III has set itself the goal of combining the individual timbres of their instruments in homogeneous chamber music and also rediscovering and presenting the partially forgotten repertoire for this line-up.

Thursday, May 22, 2025 at 7:00 p.m

Palais Ehrbar – Kleiner Ehrbar Saal
Mühlgasse 28
1040 Vienna

Admission free! / Registration here.

Contributors:

Trio Lumina III 

Aidana Madyar, flute

Sabine Libera, cello

Anastasija Richter, piano

Program:

Works by Walter Bricht

The exhibition “Eric Zeisl. Vienna’s Lost Son in Foreign Lands”

Erich Zeisl (1905-1959) is one of those displaced Viennese composers whose works have returned to contemporary musical consciousness thanks to the achievements of exile music research and have found their way into the current canon of literature. Born in Leopoldstadt in 1905, Zeisl was enrolled as a highly talented teenager at the then Academy of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (now the mdw) in 1920/21. It is therefore an important concern of the Exilarte Center to honor this composer, who was so closely associated with Vienna and died in Los Angeles, with an exhibition.

Zeisl put his signature to his fate in Austria with the song “Komm süßer Tod”: composed in January 1938 and premiered in Vienna’s Ehrbarsaal in February of that year, it was the last song in the German language to end a flourishing career – shattered by the rise of National Socialism and the Anschluss that immediately followed in March 1938. It is precisely this image of the clash of worlds – Zeisl’s origins, the Café Tegetthoff, were soon “Aryanized”, Zeisl himself escaped to Paris under dramatic circumstances after the November pogrom of 1938 – that marks the entrance to an exhibition that aims to make the rupture of exile into a “before” and “after” tangible.

The public’s perception and reception of the works in this “before” and “after” were fundamentally different. The exhibition traces these moments of an exile biography, the narrative line follows the exile locations Paris, New York and Los Angeles.

While abroad, his style changed in the direction of “Jewish art music”, which is also the subject of the exhibition. Barbara Zeisl-Schoenberg, Zeisl’s daughter, and Randy Schoenberg, his grandson, have donated the entire correspondence (over 5,000 letters) and the musical estate to the archive of the mdw’s Exilarte Center.

The exhibition catalog is published by Böhlau Verlag.

The duration of the exhibition is from 14.05. – 20.12.2025
Curator: Karin Wagner

Opening hours are:
Wednesday – Friday: 15:00 – 19:00
Saturday: 13:00 – 17:00

Closed in July & August and on public holidays.
Free admission!

Walter Bricht – musical portrait on radio klassik Stephansdom

Broadcast on March 28, 2025, 11:00 a.m.

In cooperation with Exilarte, radio klassik Stephansdom is dedicating the program Rubato to the Austrian composer Walter Bricht. His fate is exemplary for many musicians whose careers came to an abrupt end as a result of political persecution under National Socialism.

Walter Bricht (1904-1970) was a composer, pianist and music teacher. Born in Vienna, he was considered an exceptional musical talent. In 1938, he emigrated to the USA, where he taught as a professor and continued to compose. His oeuvre includes songs, chamber music and orchestral works.

In the program, Arabella Fenyves talks to one of his daughters, flautist Dana Higbee, about her father’s life and work. The program includes songs by Walter Bricht, performed by Arabella Fenyves (soprano) and David Hausknecht (piano).

Exilarte is committed to rediscovering and reappraising the biographies and works of expelled composers – Walter Bricht’s artistic legacy is also part of the Exilarte Center’s estate

More information about the program at https://radioklassik.at/programm/sendeformate/archiv/1428/.

“Fremde Erde” – Festival of Ostracized Music | 24.04. – 04.05.2025 | Vienna, Neubau

© Serena Nono „Figura“ (2019)

The “Fremde Erde” music festival is a project of the VIVA LA CLASSICA! association in cooperation with the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI), “Neubau erinnert”, the Jewish Community of Vienna (IKG.Kultur) and the Exilarte Center of the mdw.

For concert dates please visit www.fremde-erde.at

The programme

The festival is a tribute to the work and lives of composers whose works were banned under the Nazi regime and defamed as “degenerate art” – a term used at the time for all art forms that were considered undesirable in the Third Reich. VIVA LA CLASSICA! brings the music of Anita Bild, Henriëtte Bosmans, Erich Zeisl, Viktor Ullmann and many other composers back to life.

Mia bella Signorina | Hans Gerold | May 8th & 9th, 2025

© Wolfgang Gerold

Melodramatische Biographie des Lebens – Künstlers Hans Gerold

The eventful life of the poet-composer Hans Gerold (1884 – 1958), née Goldberger, under changing political circumstances, private ups and downs, characterized by artistic friendships – including with Franz Lehár – supported by his wonderful music.

Thursday, May 8th 2025, 7:30 p.m. – sold out!
Friday, May 9th 2025, 12:00 p.m. – admission via eventjet.at
Free admission, registration via eventjet.at

MuTh Konzertsaal der Wiener Sängerknaben
Am Augartenspitz 1, 1020 Wien

Organizer, Idea, Conception 
Wolfgang Gerold

Book and Direction:
Charlotte Leitner

Music and Lyrics 
Hans Gerold

Choreography:
Gabriel Wanka
Helena Sturm

Musical Direction and Arrangement:
Nicolas Radulescu
Salonorchester Wien
Vasilis Tsiatsianis (piano)

Contributors:
Waltraud Barton
Wolfgang Gerold
Raphael Kaufmann
Beate Korntner 
Merle Krammer
Charlotte Leitner
Markus Mitterhuber
Florian Resetarits
Gabriel Wanka

Concert Series ” Echo of the Unheard” | April 9, 2025 | Wilhelm Grosz and Walter Würzburger

Violinist Eva Lucia Schmölzer and pianist Keiko Kamada presented works for violin and piano by Wilhelm Grosz and Walter Würzburger. While Grosz’s work ranged from late romantic sonority to jazzy elements, Würzburger developed his own musical language that combines expressive harmony with precise form. 

Thursday, April 9, 2025 at 7:00 p.m

Palais Ehrbar – Kleiner Ehrbar Saal
Mühlgasse 28
1040 Vienna

Admission free! / Registration here.

Contributors:

Eva Lucia Schmölzer, violin

Keiko Kamada, piano

Program:

Works by Wilhelm Grosz, Walter Würzburger and Zoran Rosendahl

Moderation:

Gerold Gruber, founder of exil.arte and head of the Exilarte Center

Stones of remembrance for Julius Bürger and his family | Obere Donaustrasse 59 | September 15, 2024

© Stones of Remembrance

Memorial stones for the composer Julius Bürger and his family were recently laid at Obere Donaustraße 59 in Vienna. These memorial stones, which commemorate Chaje Bürger, Solomon Bürger, Elias Bürger, Isak Bürger, Siegfried Bürger, Julius Bürger and Rosa Bürger, are part of a project launched at the initiative of the American musician and researcher Ryan Ross. Ross has dealt intensively with the life and work of the Viennese composer Julius Bürger, who was forced into exile in the USA due to the horrors of National Socialism. 

The laying of the memorial stones was made possible by the “Stones of Remembrance” association with the support of the City of Vienna and the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism.

The composer’s friends, supporters and relatives took part in the solemn memorial ceremony, including Ron and Collette Pohl, Trude Zörer, Eva Spreitzler, Edith Seybal and the team from the mdw Exilarte Center under the direction of Gerold Gruber. 

©Stones of Remembrance l to r.: Gerold Gruber, Ryan Ross, Ronald Pohl, Collette Pohl, Trude Hörer

The event was supported by Uniqa Insurance Group, which made its premises available. The ceremony was musically accompanied by the group Avanim, with Daliah Hindler and Barbara Probst singing and Christoph Kögler on the accordion.