“The Lonely Living Stars”

Concert for the Memorial Day of the Victims of National Socialism (video recording available, in German)

After Hitler took power, the music scene in Germany – and later in the annexed and occupied countries of Europe – experienced an unprecedented bloodletting as a result of antisemitic persecution. For Jewish musicians, being banned from their vocation and excluded from public life were only the first steps along the road to systematic displacement and murder. The concert program in observance of the Memorial Day features piano pieces and art songs by Jewish composers who were victims of National Socialism. These compositions, some of them rediscovered only in the past few years, have been combined with melodies traditionally sung at synagogue.

recording available

Map with all buildings that belong to the Jewish Museum Berlin. The Old Building is marked in green

Where

Old Building, ground level, Glass Courtyard
Lindenstraße 9–14, 10969 Berlin

Where, when, what?

The concert will include pieces by Viktor Ullmann (1898–1944), Juliusz Wolfsohn (1880–1944), Bernhard Sekles (1871–1934), and Arno Nadel (1878–1943), as well as synagogal chants and liturgical works by Louis Lewandowski (1821–1894). The performers are Yoed Sorek, cantor of Hanover’s Liberal Jewish Community, and the pianist and musicologist Jascha Nemtsov, who will also guide the audience through the program.

Livestream from 27 January 2022, in German; Jewish Museum Berlin 2022

Jascha Nemtsov

Jascha Nemtsov, born in 1963 in Russia, is Academic Director of the Cantorial School of the Abraham Geiger College and a Professor of the History of Jewish Music at the Franz Liszt University of Music in Weimar. He has recorded numerous albums as a pianist, including world-premier recordings of works by Jewish composers. Several of his albums have received international honors.

Yoed Sorek

Yoed Sorek was born in 1980 in Jerusalem, where he studied piano and voice. He went on to study at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague, Scuola Civica in Milan, Scola Cantorum in Basel, and the Abraham Geiger College in Potsdam. His is a choral director, pianist, and singer and has specialist in Jewish and Yiddish music alongside his classical repertoire. He has been the cantor of the liberal Jewish community in Hanover since 2021.