Freedom of the arts is essential for any democracy, but what role do the arts play when democracies come under pressure? Through four concerts and talks in New York City, the program indulged in the works and stories of composers who went into exile, sharing their music, and asking how democracies and the arts relate today.

Songs from Exile with works by Rosy Geiger-Kullmann, Paul Aron, and Ernst Toch, performed at the Center for Jewish History, Leo Baeck Institute New York, introduced two German-Jewish composers in American exile: Paul Aron and Rosy Geiger-Kullmann. Aron, a protagonist of the German interwar avant-garde, founded an opera company in New York in the 1950s to popularize the works of émigrés such as Darius Milhaud, Kurt Weill, Tadeusz Kassern, and Ernst Toch through piano arrangements and English translations. One of these - his English version of Toch’s short opera Egon & Emilie - was presented alongside exile songs by Aron. Geiger-Kullmann, a successful opera composer of the Weimar Republic, was born in Frankfurt and fled from the Nazis to New York and later to Monterey. Excerpts from her opera Columbus, written after her arrival in New York, and two-stage works from her years in Germany have been reconstructed and were performed in excerpts – a world premiere.

• Rosy Geiger-Kullmann: Excerpts from Ritter Lanzelot, Emanuela and Columbus (World Premiere)
• Paul Aron: Zwei Lieder nach Gedichten von Christian Morgenstern, No 1. Es ist Nacht, January 26, 1950; In Memoriam … Three Songs (William Butler Yeats), No. 2. To Judd. Had I the Heaven’s, August 24, 1947; Vier Herbstlieder (Herman Hesse), No. 1. Der stille Hain, August 10, 1937, revised: July 29, 1947, No. 4. Ich habe nichts mehr zu sagen, August 7, 1947 (World Premiere)
• Ernst Toch (arr. Paul Aron): Edgar & Emily
• Moderation: Kai Hinrich Müller (Thomas Mann House, Los Angeles)
• Musicians: Manhattan School of Music

Photos by: Jamie Isaacs

This festival is generously supported by the Friends of Freiburg University, New York.

Music by:

Ellie Pope, soprano
Benjamin Warschawski, tenor
Benjamin Sokol, baritone
Weiyu Wang, soprano
Elliot Roman, piano
Rea Abel, flute
Clara Cho, cello

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In cooperation with the Manhattan School of Music.

The events will be hosted by 1014 – space for ideas, Austrian Cultural Forum New York, Goethe-Institut, and Leo Baeck Institute - New York | Berlin. Presented by Thomas Mann House and curated by Thomas Mann Fellow Kai Hinrich Müller.

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Photos: Jamie Isaacs