DESCRIPTION:
Music of Terezin

Aldeburgh Young Musicians explore the music of Terezin, a Nazi concentration camp in todays Czech Republic, in which some of Europe's most talented musicians were held during the Second World War. Guided by 'cellist, singer and conductor, Simon Wallfisch, AYm will also be introduced to the concept of Entartete Musik, which include works by composers such as Felix Mendelssohn, Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schonberg, all famed and outlawed at the time. They will also compose new repertoire inspired by these artists and conditions in which they wrote, suffered and died. Terezin Composers to be introduced include: Ullmann, Krasa, Klein and Haas.

Holocaust survivor, cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, a gifted young musician born in Gemany in 1929, survived Auschwitz because of her cello playing. She went on to become a founding member of the English Chamber Orchestra, working alongside Benjamin Britten. Anita will share with AYM, her experiences and memories of her childhood as a Jew in Nazi germany desperate to study the cello, and those early days of the Aldeburgh Festival with Benjamin Britten.