Concordia Music Department - MB8.265 (Montréal)

October 13, 2015

6pm

Ostracized composers in Nazi Europe – Conversation Concert with Moritz Ernst

Changing the direction cultural life was one of the primary goals of Nazi governments all through Europe during the late 1930s and 1940s. Many persecuted artists and composers fled the oppression to England, the Americas or further afield, but other dissidents, for various reasons, could not or would not flee. The government prevented any professional activity: they might survive for a time, but as artists they had to go underground. Yet many of them continued to compose, even in concentration camps, where some of them ended up. Pianist Moritz Ernst has time and again championed the forgotten works written by these composers, recorded them for radio and CD, thereby introducing a wider public to these extraordinary compositions. In this conversation-concert, he and I will discuss some of these composers, such as Norbert von Hannenheim and Viktor Ullmann, play selected excerpts, and, at the end, play one or two longer works in full.

Oct 13, 6 pm Concordia Music Department MB8.265, Montreal