Through vocal music, we are given a direct connection with a composer’s unique personality and the culture and times in which the composer lived. Anticipating the University Musical Society concert by the Pavel Haas Quartet, this presentation will first examine the life and works of the award-winning Czech Jewish composer Pavel Haas (1899–1944), who continued to compose songs while interred at the Terezín concentration camp. The lecture will then extend to other Jewish composers across Europe, contemplating their individual, unique stories, how their careers before the war and their nationalities played a major role in the formation of their compositional voices, and how World War II affected their lives and music.

Presenters: Timothy Cheek, associate professor of voice, and Caroline Helton, assistant professor of voice, U-M; Kathryn Goodson, piano; Allen Schrott, bass-baritone.

Co-sponsored by Center for European Studies, Center for Russian, East European, & Eurasian Studies, and Frankel Center for Judaic Studies.