Innovators in Exile

Alexis Rodda is organizing this fundraiser to benefit Elysium between two continents, Inc..

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In 1922, a group of musicians organized a festival in Salzburg to showcase modern music. Seen by some scholars as an attempt to subvert the conservative image of a newly-founded Austria being promoted by the Salzburg Festival, the festival returned in 1923 as the International Society for Contemporary Music, which still exists today.

However, even by 1923, the festival had already earned the ire of anti-modernists, with one reporter calling the participants “musical Bolsheviks.” The majority of those composers would later be exiled – either as Jews or because Nazi ideology linked modernism with Jewishness and communism. Most of these composers, in the midst of or on the precipice of vibrant careers, are now virtually unknown.

Join us in honoring the centennial of the ISCM with three evenings of music from these exiled composers, including Rudolf Reti, Paul Pisk, Karl Weigl, Hugo Kauder, Wilhelm Grosz, Egon Lustgarten, Paul Hindemith, and Egon Wellesz. Please help us in illuminating these unjustly forgotten composers whose music was repressed due to antisemitism and hatred.

This program is presented in collaboration with the Leo Baeck Institute and the American Society for Jewish Music and is presented under the patronage of Thomas Hampson.

On April 20th, we will kick off the series with chamber music works and talks by Michael Haas (exil.arte) and Alexis Rodda (soprano, program coordinator of Elysium Between Two Continents, and independent musicologist).

April 20, 2023 - 6:30 PM (Pre-concert talk 6:30, 7:00 Concert) - Chamber music and vocal works from the composers of the 1922 inaugural ICSM festival - The Center for Jewish History

April 21, 2023 - 7:00 PM - Chamber music works with string ensemble and piano - Marc A. Scorca Hall at Opera America

April 24, 2023 - 7:00 PM - Vocal selections with singers and piano - The Austrian Cultural Forum NYC

Donors who give are eligible for certain rewards based on donor level:

$1000 or above: Lunch with Michael Lahr, Program Director of Elysium Between Two Continents
$500 or above: A private informational Zoom session with the creative team behind Innovators in Exile where you can ask questions and learn more about the project
$250 or above: You'll receive a complimentary signed copy of Program Director Michael Lahr's book, Erwin Piscator's Legacy Lives On: Conversations About Theater, Music and Politics
$100 or above: Following the program this April, you'll be given either a physical CD or a link to a Spotify playlist with recordings of all the music heard on this concert
Any amount or above: You will receive special thanks in our program in April!

Elysium Between Two Continents fosters artistic and academic dialogue, creative and educational exchange and mutual friendship between the United States of America and Europe. Through art, Elysium fights against ignorance, discrimination, racism, hatred, anti-Semitism, and forgetting or trivializing the Holocaust. Elysium’s history is closely linked with Erwin Piscator and his groundbreaking ideas of a politically and socially relevant theater. Founded in 1983 by Gregorij von Leïtis as a theater company in New York, Elysium presented numerous American premieres of German-language plays in English translation. During the last two decades, one programmatic focus has been the rediscovery and presentation of music and literature created by artists who were persecuted by the Nazis. Gregorij von Leïtis is the Artistic Director and Michael Lahr is the Program Director of Elysium Between Two Continents.