Singing a song in a foreign land

Meyn, N. (2013) Singing a song in a foreign land. [Website]

Abstract

Singing a Song in a Foreign Land was a major research and performance project focusing on musicians who emigrated from central Europe as a result of Nazi persecution during the 1930s and 40s. An online resource has been created as part of the project which includes videos of interviews with and about musicians who emigrated from Nazi Europe; biographies of featured musicians with links to external sites with further information; and excerpts from performances by RCM musicians. This unprecedented wave of emigration of highly skilled musicians had a lasting impact on musical culture in Britain, the United States and many other countries. Many of them were Jewish, and often their family members and friends were murdered in the Holocaust. In Britain, major cultural institutions like the BBC, the Royal Opera House, Glyndebourne Opera, publishers and conservatoires all employed émigré musicians. Indeed today’s international professional classical music scene owes much to their contribution, which we aimed to celebrate. Exploring the music of émigré composers is a vital aspect of this project. Their music embraces multiple languages, cultural influences and styles and is often truly international in nature. Much remains to be done to make this music better-known and accessible to performers and audiences. The project was curated by RCM professor Norbert Meyn. The web resource is available open access at the 'Official URL' given on the Metadata tab below, and earlier versions of the website, from 2013 onwards, are available on Wayback Machine at https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.rcm.ac.uk/singingasong/.

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