weimar resounds! ///// Nov. 9, 2013

A short video report about Weimar klingt! (Weimar resounds) by Benjamin Zeising:

„Weimar klingt!” was a huge success!

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A Weimar-wide sound installation by Alan Bern
for an open music culture

75 years ago, the Nazi government, through an initiative of Dr. Hans Severus Ziegler, then General Director of the German National Theater in Weimar, placed these and thousands of other names of Jewish musicians on the list of "Decadent Music." The consequences were persecution, exile and murder. American jazz, cabaret, atonal music, "socialistic" music and "nationalistic" music of Germany's enemies in the war were also strictly forbidden. Today, it's a matter of course that we're free to listen to any music we like, but it wasn't always so. And Weimar played a major role in the cultural infamy of the Nazis.

Imagine a flood of sound enveloping every corner of Weimar: handbells, church bells and beautiful music of every kind!

For that reason, the City of Weimar commissioned Dr. Alan Bern (director of Yiddish Summer) to create the culminating event of a week commemorating the 75th anniversary of the anti-Jewish pogrom throughout Germany on November 9/10, 1938 ("Kristallnacht").

On the evening of November 9, 2013, "Weimar resounds" will have two parts:
(i) a city-wide sound installation followed by
(ii) a concert program

... but the first Weimar-wide sound installation for an open music culture is only possible if you join in!

"Weimar resounds" bears witness to all victims of the Nazis and affirms our commitment to a free, pluralistic society by celebrating music and composers that were defamed as "decadent" in the Nazi era.

To find out what, where and when everything is happening and how YOU can take part, click the links right. Where there was once fearful silence, let there be joyful sound!

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A project of:

In cooperation with:


	How can I be part of one of the Stolperstein groups? How can I join in while staying at home? The sound installation has 3 stages. Stage 1 (7:00 -7:45): Small groups gather at the Stolpersteine (Stumbling Blocks) in Weimar and softly ring handbells to call attention to these places using sound. Stage 2 (7:15-7:45): Citizens and visitors living in Weimar join in by throwing open their windows and doors and flooding the streets with sounds of music forbidden in the Nazi era. The Stolperstein groups walk to the Reithaus in the Park on the Ilm, ringing the handbells along the way. Stage 3 (7:30-7:45): The churches, City Hall and other institutions join in, adding their large bells to the joyful cloud of sound. Starting with private citizens and then growing larger to include official institutions, all of Weimar joins together in a simultaneous sound celebration.

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	at the Reithaus in the Park on the Ilm 8 pm, November 9 \| free admission
The program includes music by Mendelssohn, Weill, Eisler, Offenbach, Debussy, Ullmann, Gershwin, traditional Yiddish and Roma music, texts written by children and adults persecuted by the Nazis, and historical documents, presented by very special musicians from Thüringen and abroad, and by students of the Humboldt Gymnasium and representatives of the Gedenkstätte Buchenwald: Alan Bern (Berlin; Director, piano, accordion) Matthias Eichhorn (Weimar; contrabass, Director of the Handglockenchor Gotha) Handglockenchor Gotha Milena Kartowski (Paris; voice) Diana Matut (Halle) Matthias Wollong (Weimar; violin)