Wednesday, April 2 at 7:00 pm (Israel) — Watch a video recording of the Zoom session.

Special Agnon House invitation-only online event with participants and “alumni” of our travel seminars and tours. In 2022, during our travels through Prague, Vienna, and Budapest we visited Terezin (you no doubt remember the hidden prayer room if you were there with us), and we will revisit that town and its Nazi concentration camp approximately 60 kilometers north of Prague this summer as we return to that itinerary.

In the most unlikely of places, artistic creativity arose as an authentic Jewish response to trauma.

In 1941, the residents of Terezin (Theresienstadt) were evacuated and the town became a ghetto where Jews from all over Europe were held pending their transport to extermination camps in Poland. There were many artists, musicians, conductors, composers, and actors in Terezin, and in spite of the horrific living conditions, there developed an incredibly rich cultural life:  Czech and German theater, Cabaret in both languages, opera, chamber music, light music, and jazz. Join us for an online talk with Allan Sternfield, which will focus on the composers who were active in Terezin and the efforts of the last forty years to bring their music to the general public so that they can finally receive the recognition due them as important figures in 20th-century music. (Read more about Terezin.)

Allan Sternfield (veteran of our Portugal trip and upcoming Provence and Prague tours) was born in the United States and studied at the Peabody Conservatory of Music with Walter Hautzig; he later coached with Leon Fleisher and Wilhelm Kempff.  Since moving to Israel in 1976, he has performed extensively as a soloist with orchestras, in chamber music concerts, in solo recitals, and on the radio.  He has participated in the Israel Festival, the Upper Galilee Chamber Music Festival, and in international festivals.  He was twice awarded the Ministry of Education Prize for Outstanding Performances of Israeli Music. For more than 30 years, Allan has been performing and promoting the works of composers who were victims of the Shoah, especially those active in the Terezin ghetto. He was on the faculty of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance until his retirement in 2017.  During that time he served two terms as Dean of Students and three terms as Chairman of the Keyboard Department.

 

The program is open to travelers on our previous or upcoming Agnon House tours:  2018: Ukraine / 2019: Lithuania & Latvia / 2022: Prague, Vienna & Budapest / 2023: Portugal / 2023: Germany / 2024: Poland / 2025: Provence / 2025: Prague, Vienna & Budapest.