As a former student of Alban Berg and Anton Webern, the composer Philip Herschkowitz was one of the most sought-after private teachers of young musicians in the former Soviet Union after the war until the 1980s. Because of his Jewish origins, Herschkowitz, who was born in Romania, was expelled from Vienna by the Nazi regime. In Moscow, too, he continued to suffer from anti-Semitic threats and his works were frowned upon as “formalistic”. The focus of the concert is the musical work of Dmitri Smirnov and Elena Firsova, both of whom belonged to the narrow circle of private students and whose compositions were on the regime’s notorious “black list” from 1979 onwards. The exceptional pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja could again be won as interpreter of this program, who will perform this evening together with singer Maacha Deubner, flutist Ulrike Anton, harpist Anna Verkholantseva, violist Marta Potulska and pianist and composer Alissa Firsova.
In an interview with Irene Suchy, the pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja and the composer Alissa Firsova will talk about their apprenticeship years with Philip Herschkowitz and the compositions on the evening’s program. The concert takes place in memory of the composer and Herschkowitz student, Dmitri Smirnov, who died of Covid-19 in 2020.
Works by: Elena Firsova, Dmitri Smirnov, Arnold Schönberg and Philip Herschkowitz
Performers: Elisabeth Leonskaja (piano) Ulrike Anton (flute) Maacha Deubner, (soprano) Alissa Firsova (piano) Anna Verkholantseva (harp) Marta Potulska (viola)
Moderation: Irene Suchy
When: May 16, 2023, 7 PM (EST) Where: Palais Ehrbar- Large Ehrbar Hall Mühlgasse 28, 1040 Vienna
These concerts mark the beginning of the cooperation with the American publishing house Schirmer/Wise Music, who will publish over 300 works from the archive of the Exilarte Center at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna over the next years.
SPECIAL EVENTS as part of the ORF Long Night of Museums
1) Literary Reading with Music (starting at 7 pm)
In Memory of Käthe Leichter – 80 Years After Her Murder by the Nazis
Opening speech: Mag.a Ulrike Sych, President of the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna
Käthe Leichter was one of the first leading Austrian social democrats to fight for equal rights of female and male workers. Her letters paint an impressive picture of a courageous woman. In 1939 she was deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she was murdered in 1942. Her sister, the composer and music therapist Vally Weigl, managed to flee to the USA together with her husband, the composer Karl Weigl in 1938.
The well-known actress Christine Ostermayer reads together with Gregorij von Leitis letters from Käthe Leichter and her husband Otto Leichter. The musical framework for this event is provided by works of Vally Weigl and Karl Weigl interpreted by soprano Josipa Bainac and pianist David Hausknecht.
Introduced by: Michael Lahr von Leitis (Lahr from Leitis Academy) and Gerold Gruber (Head of the Exilarte Center)
2.) Book presentation with musicfrom the 1930s (starting at 9 p.m.)
„In-Musik-sein“ – The Musical Situation of the Exile Philosopher Günther Anders
Günther Anders is not only a technology-critical philosopher, he is also the author of writings on the philosophy of art and music. His Theorie der musikalischen Situation is reconsidered in the book „In-Musik-sein“ is presented here with a music-pedagogical intention.
During this event, the singers Melanie Hirsch and Sylvia Khittl-Muhr will interpret together with the pianist Christoph U. Meier works by Ralph Benatzky, Wilhelm Grosz, Friedrich Hollaender, Michael Jary and Robert Stolz. The musical estate of Wilhelm Grosz is located in the archive of the Exilarte Center.
Moderation Panel:
Gerold Gruber (Chairman of the Exilarte Center)
Markus Hirsch (mdw – Institute for Music Education)
Christoph Khittl (mdw – Institute for Music Education)
An mdw cooperation between the Institute for Music Education (IMP) and the Exilarte Center.
3.) Tours through the exhibition (as of 6:30 p.m.)
Fritz Kreisler – A Cosmopolitan in Exile. From Child Prodigy to “King of Violinists”
Life and work of famous violin virtuoso Fritz Kreisler are presented in the new exhibition of the Exilarte Center through photos, scores as well as life and audio documents. When the National Socialists came to power in Germany, the performances of the star violinist were accompanied by disruptions and calls for boycott due to his Jewish heritage. Also his compositions were no longer played. In September 1939 Kreisler immigrated to the USA, where he settled in New York together with his wife Harriet.
TICKETS
Tickets can be bought directly at the Exilarte Center! Exilarte Center at the mdw, Lothringerstraße 18 / 1st floor, 1030 Vienna
Regular: € 15.00 (including VAT) Reduced:* € 12.00 (including VAT) Free entry for children up to 12 years of age * reduced tickets for schoolchildren, students, senior citizens, people with disabilities, military service and Ö1 Club members. Please have the relevant proof ready on site.
On June 27, 2022 at 5 p.m., the Ukrainian musicologist Prof. Luba Kyyanovska will talk about outstanding Ukrainian musicians and composers who were active in the second half of the 20th century and persecuted by the Stalinist regime.
The lecture will be musically accompanied by singer Zoryana Kushpler and pianist Iryna Nikolayeva.
An event in cooperation with the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs.
The lecture will be given in German.
Monday, June 27, 2022 5 p.m. mdw –University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna Lothringerstrasse 18 Franz Liszt Hall (3rd floor) 1030 Vienna/Austria
Admission free!
Wearing an FFP2 mask during the event is recommended.
The Exilarte Center of the mdw will host and organize a symposium on the subject of Exile, Modernism and Hollywood on June 11 & 12, 2022 at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna/Austria.
SYMPOSIUM EXILE, MODERNISM, and HOLLYWOOD
This symposium seeks to find the seeds to musical Modernism in the cinema of the 1930s and 1940s and evaluate its ultimate influence in film and absolute music. Hollywood became home for a vast diaspora of composers with the advent of sound cinema in the late 1920s. With the rise of Nazism and Bolshevism in Europe, the diaspora widened considerably, primarily by Austro-German exiles. Composers Hanns Eisler and Karol Rathaus had already rejected the late-Romanticism of Max Steiner and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, while other composers such as Ernst Toch, Hans Salter and Franz Waxman (Wachsmann) had taken the Romanticism template and modified it towards contemporary sound design.
A common experience that greatly shaped the careers of these composers was exile, which scholars have long recognized as a dialectic. It can lead to shattering experiences regarding identity, yet it can also open up new opportunities for expression and communication. In exploring connections between exile composers, Modernism, and Hollywood from the 1930s through the 1940s, this symposium examines what is surely one of the greatest cultural transfers in modern history, when European-trained composers who engaged with modernist ideas often struggled between the desire to achieve success in Hollywood while still being true to their art. Modernism in this symposium consists of a plurality of styles that Hollywood attracted, including but not limited to dodecaphony and atonality.
With the goal of examining the influence of Hollywood more broadly, we also welcome proposals about exile composers who benefited from the Hollywood film industry in other ways but did not necessarily write for film. This group would include such figures as Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, and Ernst Krenek, such as through commissions of works, teaching men and women in Hollywood, and developing social networks with members of the entertainment industry.
The Exilarte Center at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna in Cooperation with Toccata Classics.
The Theresienstadt composer Hans Winterberg (1901 – 1991) has only been known to the musical world for a few years. The Exilarte Center is largely responsible for the rediscovery of the composer and will publish a large number of compositions in cooperation with the publishing house Boosey & Hawkes over the next few years.
On her second CD with works by Hans Winterberg, the pianist Brigitte Helbig recorded the Toccata, the First Piano Sonata (1936), the Impressionistische Klavier-Suite, the Suite (1956) and Erinnerungen an Böhmen for Toccata Classics. This new CD will be presented on June 9, 2022 at 7:30 p.m. in the Franz Liszt Hall of the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. Prof. Dr. Gerold Gruber, chairman of the Exilarte Center, will guide the audience through this exciting evening, where Brigitte Helbig will interpret some of the works she has recorded. Furthermore, Peter Kreitmeir, grandson of Hans Winterberg, will speak about his numerous efforts supporting the work of his grandfather.
CD Presentation: Piano Music by Hans Winterberg (Volume Two), Toccata Classics
Thursday, June 9, 2022 7:30 p.m. mdw –University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna Lothringerstrasse 18 Franz Liszt-Saal (3rd floor) 1030 Vienna/Austria
Admission free!
Wearing an FFP2 mask during the event is recommended.
A Project in Cooperation with the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies (Yale University) / Wiener Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies, the Institute for Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology of the mdw & the Exilarte Center
On May 23, 2022, at 7 p.m. Zisl Slepovitch and his ensemble will present a concert of songs originally sung in villages and towns, in the ghettos and concentration camps across Central and Eastern Europe. The concert will take place at the Franz Liszt-Hall of the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.
Monday, May 23, 2022 7 p.m. mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna Lothringerstrasse 18 Franz Liszt Hall 1030 Vienna
Workshop: “Voices of Survivors”
Zisl Slepovitch will also present a hands-on workshop sharing the background of his research and musical production work at the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University. In the course of the workshop, Slepovitch will provide an insight into the Archive`s history and collection, methods of ethnomusicological research into testimonies with no personal access to the interviewees (working with tapes); musical restoration cases and methods.
Monday, May 23, 2022 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna Lothringerstrasse 18 Franz Liszt Hall 1030 Vienna
In 2018, the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, along with musician-in-residence D. Zisl Slepovitch and former Hartman fellow Sarah Garibova, began production of an album of songs recalled in some of the more than 4,400 testimonies from survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust in the Archive, held at Yale University.
The 12,000+ hours of recorded material – in over a dozen languages – represent thousands of people whose life stories provide insights into the Holocaust survivors’ experiences both before, during and after World War II. Songs and poems featured in a number of these testimonies, originally sung in villages and towns, in the ghettos and concentration camps across Central and Eastern Europe, convey the history of that period, in a very personal way.
