Music, Migration and Mobility: The Legacy of Migrant Musicians from Nazi-Europe in Britain

Lead Research Organisation: Royal College of Music
Department Name: Research

Abstract

Music has always been highly mobile and musicians have been crossing cultural and physical borders for centuries, both voluntarily and as a result of inhospitable ideological, economic and environmental forces in their homelands. This project investigates the relationships that develop between migrants and their adopted host society, and how they manifest in their own creativity, each crucial to evaluating the cultural impact of migration. However, our understanding of the role of mobility and migration in shaping musical culture as a whole is as yet limited. This project brings fresh methodological approaches to the study of the experiences, musical lives and subsequent impact on British musical culture of musicians who came from Nazi-ruled Europe in the 1930s and '40s. Many of them went on to make major contributions to the successful reinvigoration of art music in the ensuing decades. The project will investigate and map the journeys and careers of approximately 30 musicians as they negotiated and helped to form aspects of British musical life in the post-war period as influential teachers, composers and performers, and in major institutions such as opera houses, the BBC, and higher education. It will explore how musical skills, traditions and values were transported and exchanged, and how these interactions affected the migrants themselves, local musicians, and public musical life at large. The project also probes the practical challenges of performing and mediating their compositions-which are defined by multiple trans-national cultural influences and traditions-through a programme of experimental open rehearsal workshops. Selected works by migrant musicians that for various reasons have remained hidden will be explored by professional and student musicians, and contemporarily relevant approaches to their presentation in performance will be tested in public. Through practice-based research, we aim to bring a fresh dimension to conventional musical analysis, highlighting the cultural value of this music for contemporary audiences interested in its broader historical context.

The project includes a structured programme of research in a dozen major archives in the UK, Germany and Austria pertaining to this history, and in particular two key institutions, Glyndebourne Festival Opera and the Anglo-Austrian Music Society in London, both critical in different ways to the impact of this group of migrants on the shaping of post-war British music. Archival and historical research combined with images, oral history interviews and recorded performances will form the basis for the creation of a series of on-line 'story maps' that use geo-visualisation software to present multi-perspective narratives combining text, images, video and audio, and dynamic links to a host of relevant additional resources. From the start of the project we aim to facilitate dialogues between scholars and artists working within the context of mobility and migration today. The project team will develop a theoretical understanding of the relationship between musical cultures, mobility and migration that can benefit future research. A symposium co-hosted by the Austrian Cultural Forum will set out the scope and direction of a cross-disciplinary debate; a series of scholarly journal articles by the PI, Co-Is and RAs will develop specific themes; and an international conference co-hosted by the German Historical Institute will extend debate to other examples of music, migration and mobility. Public exhibitions at three partner institutions will complement the project's website, which will integrate the c.30 story maps, institutional case-studies, videos of workshops, performances and oral history interviews, textual commentary, and free-to-download music editions into a rich resource for the benefit of school students, musicians, educators and scholars who wish to find new approaches to our culture, characterised as it is by migration and mobility.

Planned Impact

'Music, Migration and Mobility' provides new routes to the education of the public about the role of migrants in the formation of British post-war arts and culture, its values and politics, and the ways they can be understood in the context of broader historical and social narratives. While knowledge of the contributions of a number of highly-talented and entrepreneurial musicians to the formation of some of the most prominent British musical institutions, as well as their own artistic achievements as composers and performers are of particular interest to music historians, performers and music-lovers, they also have a far wider potential impact on narratives concerning migration, mobility and national culture in general, with the potential to effect positive changes to the understanding and perception of the roles that migrants have played, and continue to play in British society.
The project benefits a variety of non-academic publics, including:
Visitors to its website, public exhibitions and events interested in the experiences of refugee musicians from Nazi Europe, and those of migrant artists in general, their impact on Britain's cultural institutions and native artistic practitioners, and the ways that narratives of migration might be differently constructed.
Secondary school students and their teachers: the project's online resources will inform the teaching of history, human geography, citizenship, performing arts, religious, and social studies at GCSE and A level. The online story maps, oral history interviews, archival materials, images and text commentaries can be used directly or as supporting resources for learning and teaching, providing context to broader political and historical narratives, provoking reflections on students' and teachers' own experiences of, and attitudes to migration.
Musicians, both amateur and professional will benefit from a significant quantity of new chamber repertoire, both directly during its practical dissemination in workshops, recordings and public performances, and in the form of professionally produced scores and recordings freely available through the website. These will extend and enrich their knowledge of, and access to a segment of post-war British repertoire for various small ensemble formations, currently little-known today.
Concert goers, and viewers of on-line videos of workshops, performances and free-to-stream studio audio recordings. Associated commentary and additional programme materials will contextualize the musical performances and serve both to enhance enjoyment of the music and inform listeners' understanding of the impact of mobility on post-war British music.
Concert promoters, broadcasters, UK and international cultural institutions. The online story maps, archival materials and biographical information, coupled with the recordings of public performances will stimulate richer understanding of the importance of 'British' music composed by migrants, which can have an impact on the future representation of such music and its contextualization, potentially stimulating the development of new presentation formats.
Civil society bodies that support migrants and others working to construct alternative narratives about the impacts of migration on national culture will be able to draw on the resources provided. There will be an open invitation for them to propose further links to be included in the digital resources and to offer feedback through the website and social media platform.
Curators and archivists at the project's partner organisations and other collections will benefit from the detailed research into their holdings, which will impact on both improved service to scholars, and the education of the general public through special exhibitions and talks.
We will measure impacts on each of these beneficiary groups by soliciting public responses to, and analysing uptake of on-line materials through social media and Google Analytics reports.

Publications

10 25 50
 
Title Arrangements and Recordings of Songs by Eric Sanders 
Description Songs by Eric Sanders (1919-2021) for voice and piano, arranged by Dominic Doutney. This edition has been prepared for the research project 'Music, Migration and Mobility - The Legacy of Migrant Musicians from Nazi Europe in Britain', a performance-led and multi-disciplinary project that aimed to better understand the significance of migration and mobility for music. Eric Sanders was born to a Jewish family in Vienna as Erich Ignatz Schwarz and he and his family fled to Britain in 1938. This RCM Edition includes an introduction and background information by Norbert Meyn and arrangements of the songs: Coffee Bar; Crash! Bang!; Come back to Soho; I Shall Never Forget Vienna; A Hope and a Dream; Fallen in Love Am I; Dark and Beautiful Stranger; Home with the Family; Lederhosen Bubi; Memories Last Forever; Adolf We Come!; My Baby; Vienna Song; Shalom Shalom; Wiener Schnitzel; The Rhythm of London and Bring meine Grüße nach Wien. The recordings are by Norbert Meyn (tenor), Esme Bronwen-Smith (mezzo soprano), and Dominic Doutney (piano). COPYRIGHT NOTICE: The recordings: Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives 4.0. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2023 
Impact Songs have been widely noted and have been performed at concerts in London and Vienna (Austria) 
URL https://researchonline.rcm.ac.uk/id/eprint/2377/
 
Title Live stream performance of music by Berthold Goldschmidt and Egon Wellesz during IAGMR Symposium, University of Surrey 
Description Performance by members of the Royal College of Music, November 4, 2020 Introduced by Dr Beth Snyder and Norbert Meyn Egon Wellesz, Sonata for Cello, op. 31 Berthold Goldschmidt, Variations on a Palestine Shepherd's Song, op. 32 Cello: Abigail Lorimier, Piano: Manuel Cini 
Type Of Art Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) 
Year Produced 2020 
Impact This connected the project team with the research centre and resulted in further collaboration. 
URL https://iagmr.org/events/
 
Title Music & Ideas Lecture Recital at the Royal College of Music, Sept 30, 2021 
Description Norbert Meyn considers how migration shapes music and performs songs written by émigré musicians. The session draws on recent research about migration and mobility in the humanities. It challenges us to reflect on how music is often perceived as belonging to nations or places, and how this might be marginalising music by migrants. Norbert, with pianist Christopher Gould, performed songs by Mátyás Seiber (1905-1960), Karl Rankl (1898-1968) and Eric Sanders (1919-2021), three émigré musicians who fled Germany and Austria in the 1930s for a new home in Britain. 
Type Of Art Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) 
Year Produced 2021 
Impact This event presented recent practice research undertaken as part of the MMM project to members of the RCM community and members of the public. The impact was twofold - previously unknown repertoire was positively received by an expert audience. The role of practice research within the institution was discussed in subsequent meetings and at Research Committee as a result of this event. 
URL https://www.musicmigrationmobility.com/post/music-ideas-event-at-the-royal-college-of-music
 
Title Music, Migration and Mobility concert 
Description An extravagant concert and pre-concert discussion celebrating the work of the AHRC-funded Music, Migration and Mobility project at the Royal College of Music. The project has been exploring the legacies of émigré musicians from Nazi Europe in Britain through concerts, workshops, archival research, oral history interviews, mapping and the recent acclaimed exhibition at the RCM Museum. A mobile display developed from this exhibition was shown in the Lavery Gallery on the day of the concert. The pre-concert event at 5.30pm presents an opportunity to meet the project's research team, who will give an overview of what has been achieved through the various strands of the project. Prof. Nils Grosch, Head of Musicology at Salzburg University, will speak about the historical research at Glyndebourne and other archives, and Peter Adey, Professor of Human Geography at Royal Holloway University of London, will introduce the project's interdisciplinary work around the concept of mobility. Alison Garnham (RCM) will outline her research on the history of the Dartington Summer School, Sarah Whitfield (RCM) will talk about databases and Digital Humanities research, Michael Holden (RHUL) will introduce some of the project's online storymaps, and the project's principal investigator Norbert Meyn (RCM) will introduce sheet music editions, recordings, repertoire guides, oral history interviews and scholarly articles. The concert will bring together RCM professors Danny Driver, Gemma Rosefield and Emily Sun, who have performed and recorded with Ensemble Émigré, formed by Norbert Meyn to celebrate works by émigré composers, with RCM singers and chamber musicians for a musical feast that presents chamber music and songs by émigré composers alongside songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten, who were both associated with them. The programme will be framed with a minimalist visual design by Matt Powell and culminate in a screening of the experimental animation film 'The Magic Canvas' by Halas & Batchelor with live music by Mátyás Seiber. 
Type Of Art Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) 
Year Produced 2023 
Impact The sold out event (which was also filmed for the internal RCM stream platform) gave access to previously unrecorded and little known music by migrant composers to a large audience including many professional musicians and music educators and increased their awareness of the repertoire and the composers. A large group of advanced RCM students was coached in the repertoire, some of which was performed again at subsequent events. 
URL https://www.musicmigrationmobility.com/post/music-mobility-and-migration-exhibiting-the-life-and-mov...
 
Title Mátyás Seiber - Traveller between Worlds, introductory film and concert 
Description This concert was recorded in the Performance Hall at the Royal College of Music on 11 November. 07:00 Mátyás Seiber Serenade for Six Wind Instruments 22:04 Mátyás Seiber Permutationi a Cinque 30:56 Mátyás Seiber Three Morgenstern Songs for voice and clarinet 36:20 Mátyás Seiber The Owl and the Pussycat for voice, violin and guitar 42:32 Mátyás Seiber 2 Jazzolettes Norbert Meyn and Simon Channing Directors Mebrakh Haughton-Johnson clarinet Alex McDonald clarinet Amy Thompson bassoon Julia Flint bassoon Kristina Yumerska french horn Emma Edwards french horn Taylor Poenicke flute Sadie Kerslake oboe Ceferina Penny soprano David Horvat violin Jerome Ness guitar Sophia Elger saxophone Lousia Kataria saxophone Ruby Orlowska trumpet Gemma Riley trombone Jack Campbell piano Dan Floyd percussion Seiber's many journeys began in Budapest, where he studied with Zoltán Kodály and collected folk songs. In 1925 he took up a position as a cellist on a cruise ship in the Americas where he became acquainted with Jazz. In Frankfurt he became the director of the first Jazz department in a German conservatoire, from 1928-33. His many successful works are characterised by 'fearless self assurance and a healthy disregard of genre limitations and national borders' (AVI music), comprising ballets, comic operas, chamber music, and film scores. This project commemorates the 60th anniversary of his tragic death in a car accident in South Africa. The workshop and concert are part of the AHRC-funded research project 'Music, Migration and Mobility - The Legacy of Migrant Musicians from Nazi Europe in Britain'. 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
Year Produced 2020 
Impact This has raised the awareness of Mátyás Seiber's music by accumulating more than 1000 views on Youtube so far. The Hungarian Cultural Center in London hosted an online screening with more than 100 registered participants. Some of these participants joined from outside the UK. 
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upIR-ZIxjLI
 
Title Octet Op. 67 by Egon Wellesz performed at the RCM Chamber Music Festival, Feb 13, 2022 
Description This performance was coached and presented by RCM Director Prof. Colin Lawson. The MMM team provided context information to the students and subsequently conducted interviews with them. Wellesz wrote the Octet O. 67 in 1948, ten years after emigrating to Britain from Vienna to escape persecution by the Nazis. This Sunday morning performance by RCM students, part of the Chamber Music Festival, will be introduced by RCM's Director Colin Lawson, who played under the composer's baton as a student. Wellesz wrote the Octet in Oxford, where he was a Fellow at Lincoln College and lecturer in musical history. He wrote the Octet immediately after completing his Second Symphony, which is often referred to as THE ENGLISH. The piece was commissioned by the Wiener Oktett, which was made up of principals of the Vienna Philharmonic and other orchestras in Vienna, and is one of Wellesz's most widely performed works. It is a modernist masterpiece, built on the often playful divertimento form, but enlarged by a profound and expansive second movement. 
Type Of Art Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact This event raised awareness of the emigre composer Egon Wellesz at the RCM and beyond. It also engaged the RCM's director in the project and led to further plans to undertake research about Wellesz in Britain. 
URL https://www.musicmigrationmobility.com/post/prof-colin-lawson-presents-the-octet-op-67-by-egon-welle...
 
Title Recordings of Songs from the 1940 internment revue What a Life! 
Description Music from the Internment Camp Revue: Douglas, Isle of Man, 1940. 2 singers: medium high and low voice, recordings of songs from What a Life! as follows: Der Song vom Stacheldraht (Norbert Meyn, tenor, Christopher Gould, piano, Ashley Solomon, flute); Frauen Song (Norbert Meyn, tenor, Christopher Gould, piano, Haim Choi, violin); Die Ballade vom Deutschen Refugee I-III (Julien van Mellaerts, baritone, Christopher Gould, piano, Ingrid Pearson, clarinet, Haim Choi, violin); Aufräume Song (Norbert Meyn, tenor, Christopher Gould, piano, Nina Kiva, cello); Keep fit! (Norbert Meyn, tenor, Christopher Gould, piano); Besen Song (Norbert Meyn, tenor, Christopher Gould, piano); Der Song vom Doppelbett (Norbert Meyn, tenor, Christopher Gould, piano, Ingrid Pearson, clarinet); Serenade (Norbert Meyn, tenor, Julien van Mellaerts, baritone, Christopher Gould, piano, Haim Choi, violin). Songs from 'What a Life!' recorded on July 22, 2021 at RCM Belle Shenkman Studios: Producer: Raphael Mouterde. Performers: Julien van Mellaerts (baritone); Norbert Meyn (tenor); Ingrid Pearson (clarinet); Ashley Solomon (flute); Nina Kiva (cello); Ham Choi (violin); Christopher Gould (piano). ***** This edition was prepared as part of the research project 'Music, Migration and Mobility - The Legacy of Migrant Musicians from Nazi Europe in Britain' which was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, reference AH/S013032/1. ***** COPYRIGHT NOTICE: The recordings: Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives 4.0. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2023 
Impact Music has become more accessible and well know and is now being considered for performances and film by external companies. 
URL https://researchonline.rcm.ac.uk/id/eprint/1880/
 
Description Significant data about the international mobility of migrant musicians employed at Glyndebourne Opera have been discovered in the company's archives.
A collection of previously unknown songs written in the 1950s by amateur migrant composer Eric Sanders have been discovered. They are being prepared for publication.
Practice research with the project's Focus Group has found that
1 A better understanding an appreciation of the compositions of migrant musicians is possible if they are identified and celebrated as mobile individuals with agency and dynamic impact on culture rather than passive victims who are seen as 'out of place'.
2 Hybridity and heterogeneity of musical styles in the works of migrant musicians can be seen as a positive function of their mobility rather than rejected as abnormal
Story maps has been found to be a powerful tool to present research and document various forms of mobility in cultural and musical history.
Exploitation Route Our free to download sheet music editions and recordings will make previously unknown music available to performers worldwide.
Findings about how to better understand music by migrant musicians can influence musicians concert programmers and scholars in the future.
The project's online resource provides a substantial source of information about migrant musicians, their compositions and musical legacies. It provides access to music that has previously not been available.
It serves as a model and aims to inspire musicians and arts organisations to foreground migration and mobility in the engagement with music and its history.
Sectors Creative Economy

Education

Culture

Heritage

Museums and Collections

URL https://www.rcm.ac.uk/singingasong/
 
Description Sheet music editions and context information about composers Peter Gellhorn and Hans Gal provided by the team have been used for a concert in the London Song Festival on October 31, 2019, directed by pianist Nigel Foster. https://www.londonsongfestival.org/concerts-1 An increased awareness of the contribution of these musicians to British culture was evident. While performances inspired by the project were severely restricted during 2020 because of coronavirus, the project's findings have been highlighted in several online events hosted by the Insiders/Outsiders Festival in London, featuring music in internment in 1940 as well as discussing the legacy of the violinist Arnold Rose. This has led to an increased interest in and awareness of the cultural contribution of refugees from Nazi Europe in Britain. Further events focused on photography of and by migrant musicians and creativity in internment. The Insiders/Outsiders Festival is currently preparing a tour to the Isle of Man commemorating internment in 1940 in association with the Association of Jewish Refugees and is featuring some of our research outputs. Other arts organisations and individuals have asked for advice on repertoire and context and are considering featuring works by migrant composers in their programmes. Findings have also been used in a series of postgraduate seminars on the theme of Music and Migration at the Royal College of Music, taught by the PI in early 2022. The project's exhibition, shown at the RCM Museum from January to May 2023, attracted approx. 5000 visitors and a substantial echo in the press and on social media. This has widely increased awareness of the contribution of migrant musicians from Nazi Europe to musical culture in Britain. The exhibition, in a mobile version on roll up banners, has also been shown at other venues in Britain and Germany and attracted many appreciative comments.
First Year Of Impact 2023
Sector Creative Economy,Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections
Impact Types Cultural

Societal

 
Title THE DARTINGTON SUMMER SCHOOL DATABASE 
Description The Summer School of Music, held initially at Bryanston in Dorset before it found its permanent home at Dartington, was the most exciting and imaginative music education institution in post-war Britain. It brought great musicians from around the world to teach and perform music ranging from the fourteenth century to the present day. After the isolation and restriction of the war years, the new mobility and diversity of the Summer School made it a uniquely stimulating meeting ground of musical ideas. The database makes it possible to search the programmes of the earliest years of the Summer School. Explore what music was played and who was teaching and performing it, from the foundation of the Summer School in 1948 until 1953, the year of its arrival at Dartington. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2023 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Increased awareness of institutional history gained by exhibition and website visitors. 
URL https://www.musicmigrationmobility.com/dartington-database
 
Title Understanding the history of 1930s musical migrants to Britain through minimal computing-led digital humanities: the Hamburger-Lidka-Fuchsová Database and Datasets 
Description Líza Fuchsová, Maria Lidka, and Paul Hamburger all left Nazi-occupied Europe during the late 1930s and settled permanently in the UK. Fuchsová (1913-1977) was a Czech pianist who became an advocate for Czech musical culture as well as an important piano soloist; Hamburger (1920-2004) was an accompanist and teacher who left Vienna for London and became a senior figure in BBC radio and Guildhall professor; and Lidka (1914-2013) [Marianne Liedtke], was a violinist, orchestra leader and later Royal College of Music professor. Their careers have been underexplored, but machine-read digitised archives have opened new possibilities for finding and sorting what can seem like an overwhelming amount of performance data. This is the underpinning data for the project, the set of files are outputted from the Hamburger-Lidka-Fuchsová Database (HLFDatabase), a database compiled by Sarah K. Whitfield as part of the AHRC funded Music, Migration and Mobility project. The full working database is available here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ts0wXoudIToWN0r0iaSLZWIradiXLsdqx5OjoVqT4yA/edit#gid=1338942989 These supporting datasets cover six different aspects of the project: 1) Venues (This dataset contains the full details of 163 venues used in the HLFDatabase); 2) Composers (this will be useful for anyone working on chamber music or concert music in 1940s and 1950s); 3) Repertoire (this will be useful for anyone working on chamber music or concert music in 1940s and 1950s); 4) Maria Lidka (this dataset covers her performance career from 1940-1954); 5) Paul Hamburger (this dataset covers his performance career from 1940-1954); 6) Líza Fuchsová (this dataset covers her performance career from 1940-1954). The entire dataset is released under CC BY-NC 4.0 permission (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2023 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact This dataset forms the basis of a research article which is due to be published soon. 
URL https://researchonline.rcm.ac.uk/id/eprint/2376/
 
Description A Musical Salon for Jewish Music Institute online and Austrian Cultural Forum 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This performance featured Norbert Meyn (tenor/director), Ingrid Pearson (clarinet), Abigail Lorrimer (cello) and Christopher Gould (piano) from the Ensemble.
Robert Kahn, Egon Wellesz and Mátyás Seiber were well known and greatly admired by audiences in Germany, Austria and Hungary before being persecuted by the Nazi regime because of their Jewish roots and forced to emigrate in the 1930s. All of them wrote a substantial amount of music in Britain, which became their home for the rest of their lives. Ensemble Émigré aims to bring their extraordinary transnational heritage to life with engaging performances and narration. The work of the ensemble is closely connected with the AHRC-funded research project Music, Migration and Mobility at the Royal College of Music.
This concert was originally planned as a live performance at the New North London Synagogue.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.acflondon.org/events/virtual-concert-ensemble-%C3%A9migr%C3%A9-a-musical-salon/
 
Description Belonging/Not Belonging - Public Research Seminar and performance at Royal Northern College of Music, Jan 29, 2020 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact A 25 min presentation and 10 min performance by Norbert Meyn (Royal College of Music), the Principal Investigator of the new AHRC funded research project
Music, Migration and Mobility which explores the legacy of migrant musicians from Nazi Europe in Britain through
practical music making, archival research and mapping.
Norbert performed a couple of songs by émigré composers Peter Gellhorn (1912-2004) and Karl Rankl (1898-1968) and discussed the challenges in contextualising,
researching and marketing this repertoire today. He also gave an outline of the repertoire written by these emigres in Britain and shared his experience from performing this at the RCM and with his professional group, Ensemble Émigré.
This event, on Holocaust Memorial Day, was shared with the art historian Monica Bohm-Duchen, director of the Insiders/Outsiders Festival.
The audience discussion afterwards, which was joined by Eva Fox-Gal, daughter of the composer Hans Gal, brought up interesting points about identity and nationalism that were helpful in focusing further research.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
 
Description Concert by Ensemble Emigre at New North London Synagogue as part of the Insiders/Outsiders Festival, Nov 10, 2019 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Insiders/Outsiders - The Concert

A celebration of the musical contribution of refugees from Nazi Europe to British culture
For this concert, part of the nationwide INSIDERS/OUTSIDERS festival, NNLS members Ashley Solomon, Maurice Chernick and Shirli Gilbert worked with Norbert Meyn (Royal College of Music) and Ensemble ÉMIGRÉ to celebrate the contribution of refugees from Nazi Europe to British culture through music.
The programme traced the lives of Jewish émigré musicians who managed to escape Nazi persecution and helped to bring music in Britain to the world, leading standards it enjoys today. It included the Huyton Suite for flute and two violins by Hans Gál (1890-1987), written for the only instruments available in the Huyton Internment Camp near Liverpool in 1940, the beautiful Elegy for Cello and Piano by the composer and piano virtuoso Franz Reizenstein (1911-1968), played by the wonderful Gemma Rosefield, and excerpts from the breathtaking Tagebuch in Tönen (Diary in Music) by Robert Kahn, a cycle of 1160 piano pieces written mostly in the composer's secluded exile in Biddenden, Kent in the 1940s, played by the internationally acclaimed pianist Danny Driver. The programme was complemented by short excerpts from letters and other historical documents chosen by Shirli Gilbert and Norbert Meyn.

Ensemble ÉMIGRÉ unites musicians in flexible combinations under the directorship of tenor and project curator Norbert Meyn. The Ensemble's repertoire is closely connected with the performance and research project 'Singing a Song in a Foreign Land' at the Royal College of Music (www.rcm.ac.uk/singingasong) and focuses on the work of composers who emigrated to Britain from Nazi Europe. www.ensemble-emigre.com

This concert was co-organised by Norbert Meyn and Rivka Gottlieb, Director of Programming and Communications at NNLS and is kindly supported by John Reizenstein, and is in partnership with the Sir Martin Gilbert Learning Centre.

It was attended by approximately 130 people. There was lively discussion afterwards, and the music, unknown to most patrons, was received with enthusiasm.

Feedback received from Rivka Gottlieb the Synagogue: I have had only positive feedback from Sunday night, and Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg in particular felt the evening was outstanding. We would very much like to ask you to come back and speak about your work at some point - we need to think about when that could be and what format, but I do hope that is something you would be interested in doing.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://www.mynnls.org.uk/event/InsidersOutsidersConcert
 
Description Concert on Isle of Man 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This concert was part of an event unveiling a Plaque commemorating the presence of Jewish Refugees on the Isle of Man during internment in 1940/41. The project's PI performed music which had been edited during the project, from the revue 'What a Life!' by Hans Gál.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Exhibition Launch - Music, Migration and Mobility at the RCM Museum 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This launch event brought together many family members of emigre musicians as well as participants in the research project
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Guided tours of Music, Migration and Mobility exhibition at RCM Museum 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Several members of the project team offered tours of the exhibition during its opening time from January to May 2023.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Joint conference paper on Dec 7. 2021 by team members Peter Adey and Michael Holden with geographer Giada Peterle, Transforming Internment (Im)mobilities: (Carto)graphic narratives of civilian internment, migration, and musical practice in Second World War Britain, AUSMOB Symposium 2021 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact The interdisicplinary work of the project was highlighted in this talk. The use of story maps to disseminate research about music in internment was tested and received encouraging feedback.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a797bbef6576e3fcf2f4a87/t/61a83d809d2607185967df96/163841576...
 
Description Music & Ideas Lecture Recital at the Royal College of Music, September 30, 2021 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This was a live presentation of songs by emigre composers explored in the project's research, contextualised with a self/reflective talk about identity, mobility and migration.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.musicmigrationmobility.com/post/music-ideas-event-at-the-royal-college-of-music
 
Description Mátyás Seiber (1905-1960) - Traveller between Worlds - Youtube premiere of introductory film and concert 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This concert featured some of the most talented young musicians in Britain today. It was broadcast from the brand new Performance Hall at the Royal College of Music, preceded by an introductory film with PI Norbert Meyn and musicologist Beth Snyder.

PROGRAMME:
Serenade for Six Wind Instruments (1925)
Permutationi a Cinque (1958)
Three Morgenstern Songs for voice and clarinet (1929)
The Owl and the Pussycat for voice, violin and guitar (1956)
2 Jazzolettes (1929/32)

Seiber's many journeys began in Budapest, where he studied with Zoltán Kodály and collected folk songs. In 1925 he took up a position as a cellist on a cruise ship in the Americas where he became acquainted with Jazz. In Frankfurt he became the director of the first Jazz department in a German conservatoire, from 1928-33. He was also influenced by Schönberg's serialism. In 1935 he emigrated to Britain, where he became a respected teacher of composition, founder member of the Society for the Promotion of New Music, and choral conductor. His many successful works are characterised by 'fearless self assurance and a healthy disregard of genre limitations and national borders' (AVI music) and include ballets, comic operas, chamber music, English songs, arrangements of Hungarian, French, Greek and Yugoslav folk songs, and film scores (including Animal Farm, 1954). This project commemorates the 60th anniversary of his tragic death in a car accident in South Africa and is part of the AHRC-funded research project 'Music, Migration and Mobility - The Legacy of Migrant Musicians from Nazi Europe in Britain'
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upIR-ZIxjLI
 
Description Mátyás Seiber - Traveller between Worlds, online screening hosted by the Hungarian Cultural Center London 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This was an online screening of the concert released on Youtube, followed by a panel discussion with team members Norbert Meyn and Beth Snyder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upIR-ZIxjLI
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.musicmigrationmobility.com/post/mátyás-seiber-1905-1960-traveller-between-worlds
 
Description Online Symposium, Music, Migration and Mobility, co-hosted by the Austrian Cultural Forum London 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Programme
Norbert Meyn, RCM - Trees have roots, humans have legs - Foregrounding Migration and Mobility in Performances
Beth Snyder, RCM - Negotiating nationalisms: the foundation and early activities of the Anglo-Austrian Music Society
Peter Adey, RHUL - 'Where music flows like money': mobility, migration and magnetism at Glyndebourne'
Nils Grosch, Salzburg University - 'I don't want to wait until it is too late again': Push and pull factors for operatic concepts around Glyndebourne's Emigrees

Concert with Ensemble Émigré and students from the Royal College of Music
Works by Hans Gál, Egon Wellesz and Mátyás Seiber
Norbert Meyn, tenor
Catherine Hooper, soprano
Lucy Colquhoun, piano
Christopher Gould, piano
Jack Campbell, piano

Florian Scheding, University of Bristol - Performing Migration: Mátyás Seiber's Ulysses
Alison Garnham - Nationalism and Internationalism in the Post-War BBC

Followed by a Panel Discussion
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.acflondon.org/events/online-symposium-music-migration-and-mobility-legacy-migrant-musici...
 
Description Online event hosted by project partner Austrian Cultural Forum 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The ACF London presenteda special virtual evening exploring the lives of Austrian musicians Arnold and Alma Rosé to mark Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January.

This was an insightful conversation between Holocaust survivor and cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, the director of the House of Austrian History Monika Sommer, and historians Heidemarie Uhl and Michaela Raggam-Blesch.
Arnold and Alma Rosé, brother-in-law and niece of Gustav Mahler, were pivotal figures in Vienna's musical milieu of the 1930s, whose careers were cut short following the annexation of Austria in 1938. Arnold Rosé emigrated to the United Kingdom.

Thanks to the touring exhibition "Only the violins remain. Alma and Arnold Rosé" organised by the House of Austrian History and curated by Heidemarie Uhl and Michaela Raggam-Blesch, new light has been shed on the lives of this outstanding father-daughter duo.

The event was chaired by the project's research associate, the musicologist Beth Snyder.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.acflondon.org/events/arnold-alma-rosé-icons-of-pre-war-viennese-musical-life/
 
Description Online event, Exploring the lives of Arnold and Alma Rosé at the Austrian Cultural Forum London 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact MMM Research Associate Dr. Beth Snyder chaired this event and gave a presentation. Approximately 60 people attended this event, which included a discussion about issues of music and migration, and resulted in wider interest in the legacies of these two musicians.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.acflondon.org/events/arnold-alma-rosé-icons-of-pre-war-viennese-musical-life/
 
Description Online event: Music and the Émigré Photographers: Companions in Creativity, hosted by Insiders/Outsiders festival, June 13, 2021 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This event was chaired by PI Norbert Meyn and featured three speakers about three historical emigre photographers who documented musical activities. It facilitated an interdisciplinary discussion between visual art and music.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h5gQ67msBE
 
Description Performance and Mobile Exhibition at Central School of Speech and Drama 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The PI was invited to perform his programme 'Emigre Cabaret' at an event titled 'Embassy Theatre Retrospective - A Jewish Perspective' at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama on November 2, 2023. During the event, the mobile exhibition 'Music, Migration and Mobility' was shown.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Performance at Panel Discussion - Voicing the Unspeakable 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The aim of this event was to celebrate survivors of the holocaust by presenting their contributions to an oral history project called 'Menschenleben' conducted in 2021, where they shared their stories to be safely archived in the Österreichische Mediathek- Austria's archive for sound recordings and videos on cultural and contemporary history. The MMM project team worked with one interviewee, Eric Sanders, to arrange and prepare performances of some of his songs written in the 1940s and 50s. The event included spoken introduction to the songs as well as selected performances.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.acflondon.org/events/panel-discussion-voicing-unspeakable-tribute-survivors-nazi-terror/
 
Description Project Panel at the London Group of Historical Geographers, May 18, 2021 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The panel sparked an interdisciplinary discussion between musicology and human geography. The discussion was incredibly useful for the project's work on mapping mobilities of migrant musicians.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.musicmigrationmobility.com/post/project-panel-at-the-london-group-of-historical-geograph...
 
Description Project panel at Midlands Music Research Network, April 2021 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact A panel of team members presented the project's methodological approach from different angles and engaged in a discussion.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.musicmigrationmobility.com/post/mmm-at-the-midlands-music-research-network
 
Description Project website for public engagement with blog and events pages 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This project website was created for engagement with the community at the Royal College of Music and with project partners and their networks. Regular blog entries give information about the progress of the project, public events and members of the team.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019,2020,2021
URL https://www.musicmigrationmobility.com
 
Description Study Day - Music, Mobility and Migration: exhibiting the life and movement of migrant musicians 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This workshop centred around the new Music, Migration and Mobility exhibition which launched at the Royal College of Music from January 2023. The exhibition follows from an AHRC-funded project on the musical lives of mobile and migrant musicians who escaped Nazi occupied Europe to Britain in the 1930s and 1940s. These individuals navigated musical culture and institutions in Britain, and at times faced prejudice, exclusion and even detention. The workshop went behind the scenes of the exhibition and explores its narrative, spatial and material construction. It raised crucial ethical, political and social issues around how we tell stories of migration and mobility, especially how memory, objects, narrative and audience come together. We discussed the tensions of design, intent and narrative authority, and we examined how the materials and spatial organisation of museum and digital spaces can be used and experimented with in order to explore the tensions and politics of mobility, migration and music.

The workshop was structured around talks, informal discussions, visiting and interpreting the museum, and a special panel with museum and collections curators on the topic of music and migration. Panellists included representatives from the Horniman Museum, the Imperial War Museum, the Museum of London, the Royal College of Music and the Museum of Geography at the University of Padua.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Talk by Beth Snyder for Book and Print initiative of the University of London's School for Advanced Studies: Mobilising Music: Perspectives from the Archive, Feb 3, 2022 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The talk presented a welcome opportunity to test the project's methodological approach, in this case the focus researching constellations of mobility though archival work, with a specialist audience. Encouraging feedback was received.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.sas.ac.uk/events/event/25690